FORCING religious leaders in Western Australia to reveal knowledge of child sex abuse risks “interfering with the free practice of the Catholic faith” and will be ineffective, Perth’s Catholic archbishop says.
The state government plans to expand mandatory reporting laws to include religious leaders such as priests, ministers, imams, rabbis, pastors and Salvation Army officers.
The laws already apply to doctors, teachers, nurses, midwives, police and school boarding supervisors.
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READ NOWArchbishop Timothy Costelloe said plans to remove legal protections around the confidentiality of religious confessions would cause “great concern and distress” to many people of faith.
While everyone supports their goal to protect children from sexual predators, many will question whether the proposed laws will achieve that, Archbishop Costelloe said in a statement on Thursday.
“The absolute freedom and confidence to reveal the depths of our shame and sorrow to God in order to experience his mercy in a truly human way through the ministry of the priest requires that there be no possibility of self-incrimination before the law.
“To threaten priests with prosecution if they remain faithful to this foundational teaching of the church is to run the risk of interfering with the free practice of the Catholic faith.”
Archbishop Costelloe said it seemed very unlikely that child abusers – who were notoriously unrepentant – would come to confession.
Those convicted under WA’s mandatory reporting laws face a maximum fine of $6000 and were likely to be banned from working with children.