Archbishop of York John Sentamu says priests in the Church of England should no longer be bound by the centuries-old principle of confidentiality in confessions when they are told of sexual crimes committed against children.
RNS:
He said that the Church of England must break the confidentiality of confession in cases where people disclosed the abuse of children. “If someone tells you a child has been abused, the confession doesn’t seem to me a cloak for hiding that business. How can you hear a confession about somebody abusing a child and the matter must be sealed up and you mustn’t talk about it?”
The inquiry was commissioned by Uganda-born Sentamu after an investigation by The Times newspaper exposed an Anglican priest, Robert Waddington, as a serial sexual abuser of children in England and Australia for more than 50 years….
…In July, Anglicans in Australia backed a historic change that breaks the convention that the confidentiality of what a man or woman tells a priest during confession is inviolable….
…Existing church law (in the Church of England) demands that the confession of a crime is to be kept confidential unless the person making the confession consents to the priest disclosing it.