"Few Take Confession or Reveal Sex Crimes"

By Jill Rowbotham
The Australian
November 16, 2012

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/few-take-confession-or-reveal-sex-crimes/story-fngburq5-1226517706666

WHETHER priests respect the sanctity of the confessional is likely to be irrelevant to the royal commission into child sexual abuse because few people attend and those who do don't reveal such matters.

If push came to shove, legal evidence expert Ian Freckelton SC said, there was not much room to refuse to testify, for priests or anyone else. However, while royal commissions did not afford the protections of a court, Dr Freckelton added: "I can't imagine a royal commission attempting to coerce a priest to disclose what was said in the confines of the confessional."

While politicians including Tony Abbott and NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell, who are both Catholic, have distanced themselves from Cardinal George Pell's defence of the confessional, senior churchmen queried whether it would ever become relevant.

Catholic historian Paul Collins, a former priest, said: "The vast majority of Catholics don't go to confession now. Priests could sit in confessionals for hours on end and wouldn't meet a soul.