Australia may compel priests to break confessional secrecy
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Sydney - Australia may force Catholic priests to betray to police those who make confessions of child sex abuse, officials said Wednesday.
Attorney General Nicola Roxon, who is in charge of setting up an ational inquiry into the conduct of clergy and other institutional office holders in child sex abuse cases, said canon law could not take precedence.
National laws require institutional office holders to report suspicions of child abuse to police.
"Child sex abuse is a crime, it should be reported," Roxon said, insisting that confession should not be sacrosanct.
Her view runs counter to that of Cardinal George Pell, Australia'smost senior Catholic official, who this week declared the church's seal of confession to be "inviolable." The covenant forbids priests from disclosing anything that penitents tell them during confessions.
Some politicians who are also Catholics broke ranks with Pell, the archbishop of Sydney, saying that priests should report allegations of sexual abuse no matter how they learned of them.//DPA
