Breaking the seal: child abuse and the confessional

An old, stubborn defiance against the state, that all-secular nasty beast that jousted with Papal power for centuries, seemed to resurface. A mandatory reporting rule to report abuse was far less important than the seal of confession, the breaking of which would be tantamount to spitting in the face of the divine.

While the mandatory reporting requirements would merely bring the clergy in line with other relationships of a fiduciary nature, traditional reservations about such rules remain. Would it, for instance, do less for the victims than intended?

People With Disability Australia, for instance, suggest a consensual element to the disclosure, though this, in a seedy sort of way, sounds much like the rape victim's lament on not reporting a crime out of fear. Consent, it would seem to follow, would be indispensable for exposing the offence, an unfortunate weakening of any reporting requirement.

Care Leavers Australasia Network offers a necessary demurral. "Unfortunately, sometimes the only way to ensure the right thing is done is through the threat of a penalty of punishment. The state and the Catholic Church (for some, the only Church), have renewed an ancient battle, with the divine enlisted as alibi and sacred protector. The priests, as they have done before, will be its militant vanguard. As with any political struggle, the victims risk being forgotten – again.