Church accused of ignoring abuse victims as ‘seal of confessional’ upheld

ENGLAND
The Telegraph

May 8, 2019

By Gabriella Swerling

The Church of England is ignoring abuse victims, survivors claim, following a report which said that clergy should report sex abuse confessions to police.

The seal of the confessional is a priest’s obligation under canon law to hear a person’s confession of sin, or imagined sin, in complete confidence.

Under these rules, nothing that a priest is told during will be repeated or disclosed under any circumstances. This is also the rule of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2015 the House of Bishops and the Archbishop’s Council commissioned a working party to assess this law in relation to safeguarding and protecting victims from sexual abuse.

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