The law that obliges the priests to violate the seal of confession if they receive information about the sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable people has this month come into effect, Tuesday 1 November.
The law, which extends to all ministers of worship of any religion, is part of new laws introduced by the McGowan government, with a penalty of up to $6,000.
Child Protection Minister Simone McGurk said the McGowan Government was “sending a clear message that nobody is above the law, including ministers of religion”.
The new laws aim to deliver on recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The changes also extend mandatory reporting requirements to early childhood, out-of-home care and youth justice workers, as well as registered psychologists and school counsellors.
The mandatory reporting laws are being implemented through a staggered approach so the groups receive support to undertake their new responsibilities.
Ministers of religion are the first group to come into effect, with other groups to be included in the new provisions in the next three years.
In a Pastoral Letter published in October last year, Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB said the confessional experience is a personal encounter between that person and Christ.
This decision of the state parliament, said Archbishop Costelloe, not only potentially criminalises fidelity to an essential dimension of the practice of the Catholic faith by priests but also carries with it no guarantee that any child will be better protected from abuse because of the new legislation.
“It is particularly concerning and troubling that the majority opinion of the legislative committee established by the government to look into this matter was not accepted by the parliament,” Archbishop Costelloe said.
“In a 3-2 majority decision this committee recommended that disclosures made in the context of a religious confession should not be subject to the new mandatory reporting laws,” he said.
As well as ministers of religion, the changes extend mandatory reporting laws to early childhood workers, out-of-home care workers, registered psychologists, school counsellors and youth justice workers.
Queensland and Victoria have also implemented similar legislation. The issue has been a hot topic across Australian states following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which released its final report to the public in late 2017.
In its investigations between 2013 and 2017, the commission found that 36 percent of abuse survivors who came forward reported abuse at Catholic institutions.
Archbishop Costelloe continued by saying that some people seem to have formed the view that if a person discloses during confession that he or she has been abused, the priest can and will do nothing.
“This is either an ignorant or a deliberately misleading presentation of the way confession is practised in the Catholic Church.
“A priest will do everything he can to provide advice, support and accompaniment if the person making the disclosure is open to this,” he said.
Priests are allowed to act if the person discloses information outside the context of confession. The priest however, according to Catholic teaching, must not betray the confidence of the person who comes to him in the confessional.
This is because, as Archbishop Costelloe explains, in Catholic teaching the priest acts in the person of Christ in this encounter.
“In a very real sense the disclosure is made to Christ who, in the person of the priest, listens, advises, encourages and assists that person in every way possible. He does not betray that person’s confidence.”
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New legislation ignores recommendations, carries no guarantee, says Archbishop Costelloe