SYDNEY — Roman Catholic leaders in Australia on Friday rejected a government push to force priests to report accusations of child sexual abuse heard during confession, saying it would violate a sacred rite, infringe on religious freedom and do little to protect children. But when the royal commission delivered the findings of its five-year inquiry into institutional child sexual abuse in December, many Catholic priests and archbishops rejected the recommendation that they break the seal of confession if they suspected abuse, with some saying they would rather go to jail. “In some case studies into schools the alleged abuse was so recent that the children are still attending school.”

Archbishop Mark Coleridge, President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, said that while the Church would not remove the seal of the confessional, it was willing to admit the failures of the past and change to regain the public’s trust. “We are aware of at least one instance where the confession has been misused.”

Slideshow (2 Images)

The ACBC report came two weeks after a former Australian archbishop became the most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of concealing abuse, and was ordered to serve a one-year prison sentence at home.
Catholic bishops in Australia reject a recommendation from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that would force priests by law to report abuse to the police when they hear about it in confession.