Priests have to report child abuse to the police if they hear from crimes in confession

Catholic priests who heard of children during the confession of sexual abuse must report to the police, said a government minister.

Jess Phillips, the Minister of the Interior Ministry for Protection and Violence against Women and Girls, has announced that the inviolability of the sacrament of reconciliation will not be protected according to the crime and the police law.

In a letter to the National Secular Society, Ms. Phillips said Birmingham Yardley's Labor MP that the government was “no exception to the mandatory reporting for religious institutions”.

She said that there would be “no exceptions” on the basis of where information about sexual abuse is given, “including confession”.

Ms. Phillips said: “The obligation applies to all persons who carry out relevant activities with children, including within religious and faith -based environments.”

The government will probably put their clarification on a collision course with the church, since the priests have automatic excommunication if they break the “sacramental seal” to pass on the sins of a 3 penitent to third parties.

The crime and police law, which has achieved a report in the House of Commons, does not contain any criminal punishments for people who do not report sexual abuse of children.

Instead, it provides sanctions by professional supervisory authorities or the disclosure and expression.

Her remarks came to a claim to a request from the NSS, an anti-religion campaign group that the government refused to have any religious exceptions for reporting on child abuse.

The NSS asked the government to follow the recommendations of the final report of 2022 on the independent examination of the sexual abuse of children (IICSA), in which “laws that certain persons -” mandated reporter ” – demanded a legal obligation to report on sexual abuse of child recommendors”.

“The mandatory reporting set out in this report should be an absolute obligation,” the report said. “There should be no exceptions based on relationships of confidentiality, religious or in other ways.”

Alejandro Sanchez, NSS spokesman, said: “We welcome the news that there will be no religious exceptions from the obligation to report.

“The securing of children must have priority from religious interests.”

In his evidence of IICSA, Cardinal Vincent Nichol, the Archbishop of Westminster and President of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, explained that the sacramental seal was not negotiable because it was an essential part of the “essential part of the practice of the priesthood”.

Priests are also prohibited from the code of canon law to break the seal.

Canon 983 it says: “The sacramental seal is inviolable. Accordingly, it is absolutely wrong for a confessor in any way to reveal the repentance for some reason, whether by word or in any other way.”

Canon 1388 adds: “A confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal [automatic] Excommunication reserved for the Apostolic lake; Anyone who does this should be punished according to the severity of the crime. “

(Photo: Ezequiel Becerra/AFP via Getty Images)