Confess Truth or Run Risk of Jail, Priests Warned

By Gemma Jones and James Campbell
The Australian
November 15, 2012

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/confess-truth-or-run-risk-of-jail-priests-warned/story-e6frg6n6-1226516960073

[with video]

PRIESTS and clergy who refuse to break the seal of confessional before the Royal Commission face being jailed for six months.

Cardinal George Pell pledged this week confession was "inviolable" but the sweeping powers of a royal commission into the cover-up of child sexual abuse will compel priests to answer questions.

Constitutional lawyer George Williams said he expected clergy to face jail rather than divulge what they have been told inside a confessional.

"Royal commissions have the discretion to go behind the confessional seal if need be to compel evidence of what occurred in the confessional box," he said.

"You would need to think very carefully (about using the power), you would probably find priests willing to go to jail."

The Royal Commission Act over-rides the Commonwealth Evidence Act that permits priests and members of the clergy from any church to keep confidential what is said in confession.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said it was a "sin of omission" to not act when a child was at risk.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott also said priests should tell police when they knew a child was being sexually abused.

"Everyone has to obey the law, regardless of what job they are doing, what position they hold," he said.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon yesterday told the ABC the seal of confessional when used to guard information about child abuse was "abhorrent".

"Child sex abuse is a crime, it should be reported, and I know that the royal commission is going to have some very complex issues to deal with," she said.

It comes as lawyers for Cardinal Pell yesterday applied to the County Court for access to material related to one of the trials of convicted Christian Brother paedophile Robert Best.

Best, 71, was last year jailed after a number of trials for sex crimes against boys at Ballarat, Geelong and Box Hill between 1969 and 1988.

Cardinal Pell's application is believed to have been prompted by the submission to the Victorian Parliament's child sex abuse inquiry by lawyer Vivian Waller.

In her submission Dr Waller has said that a victim of Best told her that Cardinal Pell, then a priest in Ballarat, was present when the victim told another priest that Best had raped him.

Best was convicted last year of raping the man, when he was a grade 3 student at St Alipius primary school in Ballarat.

A spokeswoman for Cardinal Pell told the ABC: "The only purpose of the application is to obtain information (to respond) to issues raised about this matter in the Victorian inquiry."