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Canberra, Australia, Oct 22, 2019 / 03:18 pm (CNA).- A hearing of the Australian Senate was told Tuesday that the government had narrowed the purview of an independent inquiry into the effect of anti-discrimination laws on religious schools and organizations.

The government had asked the Australian Law Reform Commission in April to report on how to balance competing claims of religious freedom rights and LGBT rights. In recent years, Australia has seen debate over religious freedom with respect to the seal of the confessional, hiring decisions, and same-sex marriage.

Sarah Derrington, president of the ALRC, told a Senate hearing Oct. 22 that the government had in August limited the commission’s field of inquiry and delayed its report.

“The terms of reference as originally drafted were quite narrow in any event but they are narrower again,” she said, according to the AAP.

The ALRC was to have published a discussion paper on its findings in November, but the government directed that it be pushed back at least eight months.

It was also told to confine its recommendation to laws other than the religious discrimination bill, and ensure that legislation on sex discrimination and employment are consistent with the bill.

Derrington said that as a result, she has paused the commission’s inquiry.

The religious discrimination bill is intended make it unlawful to discriminate against people on the ground of their religious belief or activity; establish a religious freedom commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission; and amend existing laws regarding religious freedom, including marriage and charities law, and objects clauses in anti-discrimination law.

The coalition government, which is led by the Liberal Party and includes the National Party, wants to make religious belief and activity a protected class, like race or sex. It also hopes to ensure that groups rejecting same-sex marriage are not stripped of their charitable status.

The bill has faced criticism from both religious groups and LGBT advocates.

Freedom for Faith, a Christian legal think tank, said in September that the bill would have unintended consequences, and urged that it be re-drafted before it is passed.

Among its objections to the bill was that “it does not make much sense to create new exemptions in legislation at the same time as two organisations that report to the Attorney are busily working to reduce or eliminate them,” in reference to the work of the ALRC and the Australian Human Rights Commission.

The Australian bishops’ conference has said that while the religious discrimination bill shows promise, it does not do enough to safeguard religious freedom.

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Canberra, Australia, Oct 1, 2019 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- Freedom for Faith, a Christian legal think tank, expressed concerns last week over unintended consequences of the Australian government’s religious discrimination bill, urging that it be re-drafted before it is passed.

“Freedom for Faith welcomes the considerable efforts that the Government has made to consult on the drafting of this Bill. Many features of it are very good, including general provisions for protection of people of faith from discrimination in Commonwealth law; but Freedom for Faith also has significant concerns about certain provisions which have consequences that are probably unintended,” the group said in its Sept. 25 submission in consultation on the bill.

The most prominent concerns of the think tank, which says it “exists to see religious freedom protected and promoted in Australia”, relate to staffing policies in faith-based institutions; use of property inconsistent with a religious purpose or religious beliefs; and enrolment of students in faith-based educational institutions.

The religious discrimination bill is intended make it unlawful to discriminate against people on the ground of their religious belief or activity; establish a religious freedom commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission; and amend existing laws regarding religious freedom, including marriage and charities law, and objects clauses in anti-discrimination law.

The coalition government wants to make religious belief and activity a protected class, like race or sex. It also hopes to ensure that groups rejecting same-sex marriage are not stripped of their charitable status.

In its current version, the bill would not protect religious statements that are “malicious, would harass, vilify or incite hatred or violence against a person or group or which advocate for the commission of a serious criminal offence”.

Freedom for Faith maintains that as it is written, the bill could “suggest a very limited scope for religious organisations to retain their ethos and identity, and conversely an expansive scope for suppression of free speech. It is difficult to reconcile these Notes, at various points, with government policy as expressed by the Prime Minister and Attorney-General.”

Freedom for Faith said that “the overwhelming concern of faith-based organisations across the country with whom we have spoken is about the effect of the Bill on their religious mission, with particular reference to their staffing policies.”

Prime minister Scott Morrison has promised the bill will not take religious freedom backward, but the think tank stated that “the difficulty is that this Bill does, in relation to staffing of faith-based organisations … If the issues are not resolved, this may lead us to conclude that the Bill is better not being enacted. That said, we have every confidence that the Attorney-General will be able to sort the drafting problems out.”

Freedom for Faith said it is important that faith-based groups be able to appoint adherents of their religion, as their programs are part of their mission and ministry.

“This Bill, in its present form, will make it very difficult indeed for faith-based organisations to preserve their identity and ethos, although the Explanatory Notes to s.10 say that it is the Government’s intention to support the rights of faith-based organisations to retain their culture and ethos in their staffing policies,” the legal group wrote.

It warned that the bill supports “the view that only faith-based organisations with a policy of requiring all staff and volunteers to be adherents to the faith will be protected,” while many such organizations in fact only prefer that that staff be adherents, or that there be a “critical mass” of adherents so as to preserve its character as a religious ministry.

“Even if a Catholic school or other charity did have a policy of only employing Catholic staff, it would only be lawful if this could reasonably be regarded as in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs and teachings of Catholicism,” the think tank warned, as an example.

“That may be a difficult test to satisfy in the eyes of a court,” it continued. “The court may find it hard to see how the Catholic school’s preference in terms of employment may reasonably be regarded as being in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of the religion. The school, however, may take the view that it is a necessary implication of their doctrines that they want to maintain a Catholic ethos by having a ‘critical mass’ of believing staff. Whether or not this policy does flow from religious doctrines – it is really about the purpose of having a Catholic school – it would be best if the legislation made it clear that such a policy was not unlawful.”

Another problem in the bill identified by Freedom for Faith is that its definition of a “religious body” excludes hospitals, aged care providers, publishing houses, and youth campsites run by religious groups.

As written, the bill would “prevent Christian publishers and Christian youth campsites advertising for Christian staff. This would be a bizarre and profoundly damaging outcome of laws ostensibly designed to bolster religious freedom,” the legal group noted.

Freedom for Faith urged that the bill “make a positive statement … that it is lawful for a religious body, a faith-based educational institution or a charity established for religious purposes, to appoint, or prefer to appoint, staff who practise the religion with which the organisation is associated.”

It said this is preferable to the bill creating exemptions so as “to get away from the language of having a ‘right to discriminate’”; because “there is a lot of opposition from the left of politics to any exemptions under anti-discrimination laws,” and there would be campaigns for repeal; and because, since the government has asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to report on how to balance competing claims of religious freedom rights and LGBT rights, “it does not make much sense to create new exemptions in legislation at the same time as two organisations that report to the Attorney are busily working to reduce or eliminate them.”

The second main objection of Freedom for Faith is that the bill could make some religious groups “act contrary to their beliefs if they were never permitted to rely on good faith religious objections to the use of their premises.” For example, a Catholic hospital could be made to provide euthanasia on its premises.

Thirdly, the legal think tank said the bill’s current form “may not allow schools to preference students of a particular faith. So for example, Catholic schools may not be allowed to give preference for admission” to the Catholic children.

Freedom for Faith suggested a number of other, minor improvements to the bill, and provided a suggested draft for a new section on employment.

Similarly, the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, which has reportedly worked closely in the past with the local Catholic diocese, has said the religious discrimination bill is so flawed that it cannot be supported in its current form.

Some conservative members of parliament have asked instead for a religious freedom bill. Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, of the Liberal Party, voiced concerns July 9 that the bill does not go far enough, saying it “would be defensive in nature and limited to protecting against acts and practices by others which are discriminatory on the grounds of religion.”

She said that “quiet Australians now expect the Coalition to legislate to protect their religious freedom.”

Australia has seen debate over religious freedom in recent years with respect to the seal of the confessional, hiring decisions, and same-sex marriage.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney noted last year that “we cannot take the freedom to hold and practice our beliefs for granted, even here in Australia,” and that “powerful interests now seek to marginalize religious believers and beliefs, especially Christian ones, and exclude them from public life. They would end funding to faith-based schools, hospitals and welfare agencies, strip us of charitable status and protections.”

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Sydney, Australia, Sep 25, 2019 / 06:40 pm (CNA).- In the wake of a major clergy sex abuse scandal and the high-profile, controversial trial and conviction of sex abuse of Cardinal George Pell, government and Church officials in Australia are scrambling for solutions.

Among these proposed or enacted interventions are those that would break with teachings or traditions of the Catholic Church.

One such oft-proposed intervention is the scrapping of the seal of confession, a proposed solution included in the Australian Royal Commission’s report on clergy abuse published last year.

Earlier this month, the Australian states of Victoria and Tasmania passed a law requiring priests to violate the seal of confession if anything in the confession indicated or implicated someone in a case of child sex abuse. The laws add religious leaders to the existing list of mandatory reporters, and failure to report abuse is punishable by time in prison.

Unlike in other countries with similar laws and policies, reports of child abuse made in a sacramental context are no longer exempt and must be reported.

A similar bill is being considered in Queensland, ABC in Australia reported.

If priests were to follow this law, they would be in serious violation of the teachings of the Catholic Church. According to the Code of Canon Law: “The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also states that priests are bound to keep confessions secret without exceptions: “Given the delicacy and greatness of this ministry and the respect due to persons, the Church declares that every priest who hears confessions is bound under very severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents have confessed to him. He can make no use of knowledge that confession gives him about penitents’ lives. This secret, which admits of no exceptions, is called the ‘sacramental seal,’ because what the penitent has made known to the priest remains ‘sealed’ by the sacrament.”

Bishops in both Tasmania and Victoria have said that their priests are unable to follow these news laws. The bishops of Australia also defended the seal of confession in their written response to the Royal Commission report last year.

“Personally, I’ll keep the seal,” Archbishop Peter Comensoli during an August 14 interview with ABC Radio Melbourne, shortly after the bill was introduced to the Victorian parliament. The archbishop said that he would urge anyone who confessed to abuse to report themselves to the police. However, a priest is forbidden from ordering a penitent to turn themselves in to the authorities.

Australian priest Fr. Kevin Dillon told ABC radio in Australia that he believes the seal could be changed because the rules of the seal of confession are “not written in scripture” and instead are taken from the tradition of the Church.

In another reaction to the sex abuse crisis, some Catholic officials have said that the formation of seminarians needs to be completely reimagined.

Typically, a seminarian studying to be a priest enters 7-8 year program of classes in philosophy and theology, with focuses on spiritual, human, academic and pastoral formation.

But according to an investigation by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, using data from the Royal Commission’s investigation, “seminaries had become places where repressed young men would experiment sexually with one another with little consequence, before some of them turned their attention to children in their parish,” The Age reported.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, president of the Australian bishops’ conference, told Crux in August 2018 that “In seeking to combat clericalism, we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Clearly, it requires a radical revision of how we recruit and prepare candidates for ordination. Much has changed in our seminaries, but one has to wonder whether seminaries are the place or way to train men for the priesthood now.”

The Age reports that a new “national program of priestly formation” is already being developed and will be considered by the Australian bishop’s conference in November.

One change already announced by Church leaders is that seminarians will be subjected to the same training and screening as other Church officials by the Catholic Professional Standards Ltd, a group that safeguards against child sex abuse through trainings and audits of Catholic bishops, priests and religious. The independent group is chaired by a lay board; its members are the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Catholic Religious Australia.

Sheree Limbrick, chief executive of Catholic Professional Standards Limited, told The Age that a rethinking of seminary formation should also include “ongoing formation, support and supervision” of seminarians and priests, and that the audit process would help hold seminarians and priests accountable.

Francis Sullivan, the previous head of the church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, told The Age that within the Church there are already “quite a lot of conversations about whether the seminary model is fit for purpose any more – that a revamp of the system is long overdue.”

“I think people like Archbishop Mark Coleridge are seriously considering whether the system works or whether there should be more of a focus on seminarians being integrated into academic and parish life,” he said.

The Age reports that Coleridge has previously mentioned a possible “apprenticeship model” of formation for seminarians, where they would study the same classes but have a closer relationship with a parish on the ground level. Coleridge declined further comment to The Age on the subject.

Shane Healy, a spokesman for the Melbourne Archdiocese, told The Age there was “no intention” to close the diocesan seminary, Corpus Christi, and that the bishops and leadership of the school were “committed to Corpus Christi College being a place of excellence in the formation of our future priests.”

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Hobart, Australia, Sep 12, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The leader of Tasmania’s Catholic Church said priests in his archdiocese will not comply with a law that would require them to break the seal of confession to report suspected child abuse.

The l… […]

Canberra, Australia, Sep 4, 2019 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- The president of the Law Council of Australia signalled dissatisfaction with the government’s religious discrimination bill Wednesday. Among his concerns are its ability to bolster conscience protections for medical professionals who object to participating in abortion.

Arthur Moses, head of the association of law societies and bar associations in Australia, addressed the bill in a Sept. 4 address to the National Press Club in Canberra.

According to Guardian Australia, much of his criticism focused on the suggestion the bill could protect expressions of racial discrimination.

The religious discrimination bill would make it unlawful to discriminate against people on the ground of their religious belief or activity; establish a religious freedom commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission; and amend existing laws regarding religious freedom, including marriage and charities law, and objects clauses in anti-discrimination law.

It would protect religious speech under commonwealth, state, and territory law.

The coalition government wants to make religious belief and activity a protected class, like race or sex. It also hopes to ensure that groups rejecting same-sex marriage are not stripped of their charitable status.

In its current version, the bill would not protect religious statements that are “malicious, would harass, vilify or incite hatred or violence against a person or group or which advocate for the commission of a serious criminal offence”.

The draft bill was released last week for public consultation by attorney-general Christian Porter.

Moses, in his prepared remarks to the National Press Club, said the Law Council welcomed the bill’s release “not because we necessarily agree with the government’s approach or with every provision. But because this provides an opportunity for a discussion that is long overdue about what type of nation we want to be.”

“An inclusive, tolerant and harmonious nation? A nation where people are vilified because of their sexuality in the name of religion? We need to get the balance right to ensure that there are no unintended consequences,” he stated, adding that “reasonable minds may differ about how we balance competing rights.”

He urged that “as a starting point, we need to have a clear definition of what we understand freedom and liberty to mean.”

Guardian Australia reported that Moses said the bill “doesn’t carry the same type of protection as section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act”.

Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 makes unlawful offensive behaviour done publicly because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin if the act “is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people.”

Moses said that “the concept of offend and insult in section 18C is not to be found in this legislation – so the test is much more difficult to establish in relation to provisions of the religious freedom bill than what is currently contained in the Racial Discrimination Act.”

He maintained that “this is an area where we have said you need to be very careful because some comments that are made do have an impact on the most vulnerable members of our community.”

Moses also said the religious discrimination bill would allow employers to prohibit religious speech if they would suffer “unjustifiable financial hardship”.

He called this “an interesting concept … there is a mirage of freedom of speech but it’s confined by the employer’s bottom line. I think that’s silly, with all due respect.”

Australia’s coalition government is led by the Liberal Party, which is joined by the National Party. The opposition Australian Labor Party is expected to back the bill.

LGBT advocates are opposed to the bill, as it could override some provisions of Tasmanian law.

Some conservative members of parliament have asked instead for a religious freedom bill.

Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, of the Liberal Party, voiced concerns July 9 that the bill does not go far enough, saying it “would be defensive in nature and limited to protecting against acts and practices by others which are discriminatory on the grounds of religion.”

She said that “quiet Australians now expect the Coalition to legislate to protect their religious freedom.”

The religious discrimination bill is being introduced to implement a commitment made in the 2019 federal election.

A review of religious freedom in Australia was finished in May 2018, making 20 recommendations; among these was a Religious Discrimination Bill.

The government has asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to report on how to balance competing claims of religious freedom rights and LGBT rights.

Australia has seen debate over religious freedom in recent years with respect to the seal of the confessional, hiring decisions, and same-sex marriage.

When same-sex marriage was legalized in Australia in 2017, efforts to include amendments that would protect religious freedom failed during parliamentary debate.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney noted last year that “we cannot take the freedom to hold and practice our beliefs for granted, even here in Australia,” and that “powerful interests now seek to marginalize religious believers and beliefs, especially Christian ones, and exclude them from public life. They would end funding to faith-based schools, hospitals and welfare agencies, strip us of charitable status and protections.”

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Melbourne, Australia, Aug 14, 2019 / 02:10 pm (CNA).- The Archbishop of Melbourne has said he is prepared to defy a proposed new law that would force priests in the Australian state of Victoria to violate the seal of confession.

The proposed legislati… […]

Canberra, Australia, Jul 10, 2019 / 01:19 pm (CNA).- The religious discrimination bill proposed by Australia’s coalition government is being well received generally, though some conservative members of parliament have asked instead for a religious freedom bill.

The religious discrimination bill would make it unlawful to discriminate against people on the ground of their religious belief or activity; establish a religious freedom commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission; and amend existing laws regarding religious freedom, including marriage and charities law, and objects clauses in anti-discrimination law.

The government wants to make religious belief and activity a protected class, like race or sex. It also hopes to ensure that groups rejecting same-sex marriage are not stripped of their charitable status.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said July 9 that “of course we will do what we need to do from a legislative point of view,” but “what all that boils down to is the culture in this country. It’s not the laws that make freedom of religion work, it’s the culture that accepts it.”

Morrison’s coalition government is led by the Liberal Party, which is joined by the National Party. The opposition Australian Labor Party is expected to back the bill.

Coalition MPs were briefed on the bill by attorney-general Christian Porter July 5.

Afterwards, Porter told Guardian Australia that “a bill like this would provide a very powerful avenue for someone who believed that a general rule in their employment especially disadvantaged them because of their religion, to argue that that rule was contrary to the act and unfair.”

He said the bill “provides an avenue for people who think a rule in their employment has unfairly disadvantaged them or led to their termination unfairly because of their religion, provides an avenue for complaint and potentially redress in those circumstances, and so it goes a long way to protect people from being discriminated against in the context of their employment.”

Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, of the Liberal Party, voiced concerns July 9 that the bill does not go far enough, saying it “would be defensive in nature and limited to protecting against acts and practices by others which are discriminatory on the grounds of religion.”

She said that “quiet Australians now expect the Coalition to legislate to protect their religious freedom.”

Porter made a case for the superiority of a religious discrimination bill over a religious freedom bill.

“As soon as you say, ‘Here is a bill that says everyone has a right to freedom of speech, everyone has got a right to freedom of association, to freedom of religion’ they all start competing with each other, and eventually you get the circumstance that you have got in America where the highest court in the land decides what is more important: the right to free choice or the right to life, and then the decisions around how the boundaries on really, really sensitive public policy decisions are made get made by courts,” the attorney-general stated.

Senator Pauline Hanson, of the One Nation Party, expressed concern on Facebook July 9 that “the government may be creating a pathway for extremists to practice polygamy, genital mutilation, or even under-aged marriage.”

One Nation, an Australian nationalist party, is a crossbench party with two seats in the country’s 76-member Senate. It does not have a member in the House of Representatives.

“Many people, including myself, are concerned about the rights of Australians who practice a legitimate religious faith,” Hanson said. “But what do we do when a belief clashes with the laws and customs of our land?”

The religious discrimination bill is being introduced to implement a commitment made in the 2019 federal election.

A review of religious freedom in Australia was finished in May 2018, making 20 recommendations; among these was a Religious Discrimination Bill.

The government has asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to report on how to balance competing claims of religious freedom rights and LGBT rights.

Australia has seen debate over religious freedom in recent years with respect to the seal of the confessional, hiring decisions, and same-sex marriage.

When same-sex marriage was legalized in Australia in 2017, efforts to include amendments that would protect religious freedom failed during parliamentary debate.

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney noted last year that “we cannot take the freedom to hold and practice our beliefs for granted, even here in Australia,” and that “powerful interests now seek to marginalize religious believers and beliefs, especially Christian ones, and exclude them from public life. They would end funding to faith-based schools, hospitals and welfare agencies, strip us of charitable status and protections.”

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Canberra, Australia, Jul 6, 2019 / 06:01 am (CNA).- Australia’s coalition government has proposed the introduction of legislation that would make it unlawful to discriminate against people on the ground of their religious belief or activity.

The proposal is being made to implement a commitment made in the 2019 federal election.

The legislation would also establish a religious freedom commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Moreover, it would amend existing laws regarding religious freedom, including marriage and charities law, and objects clauses in anti-discrimination law.

It would be made clear that religious groups cannot be required to make their property available for same-sex marriage celebrations.

The office of prime minister Scott Morrison said in December that “Australia is a place where discrimination on the basis of a person’s identity – including their religious identity – is unacceptable.”

“It is also a place where we respect the right of religious institutions to maintain their distinctive religious ethos. Our laws should reflect these values.”

The government wants to make religious belief and activity a protected class, like race or sex. It also hopes to ensure that groups rejecting same-sex marriage are not stripped of their charitable status.

A review of religious freedom in Australia was finished in May 2018, making 20 recommendations; among these was a Religious Discrimination Bill.

The government has asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to report on how to balance competing claims of religious freedom rights and LGBT rights.

Australia has seen debate over religious freedom in recent years with respect to the seal of the confessional, hiring decisions, and same-sex marriage.

When same-sex marriage was legalized in Australia in 2017, efforts to include amendments that would protect religious freedom failed during parliamentary debate.

Morrison’s coalition government is led by the Liberal Party, which is joined by the National Party.

The opposition is the Australian Labor Party.

Labor senator Kristina Keneally told the ABC July 3 that “we are willing to have discussions with the government and work with the government on a religious discrimination and freedom act.”

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney noted last year that “we cannot take the freedom to hold and practice our beliefs for granted, even here in Australia,” and that “powerful interests now seek to marginalize religious believers and beliefs, especially Christian ones, and exclude them from public life. They would end funding to faith-based schools, hospitals and welfare agencies, strip us of charitable status and protections.”

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Canberra, Australia, Jun 3, 2019 / 11:19 am (CNA).- Last week the Australian bishop’ conference and Catholic Religious Australia adopted new standards to combat the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults in the wake of a 2017 report on such abuse in the country’s institutions.

The National Catholic Safeguarding Standards were adopted May 30.

“These National Catholic Safeguarding Standards draw from the Child Safe Standards outlined during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and align with the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, but they provide additional criteria relevant to the governance of the Church,” Sr. Monica Cavanagh, president of CRA, stated.

“The standards will allow Catholic entities and the public to have additional confidence in the Church’s approach to addressing the tragedy of abuse and to building a culture of safety for all, especially for the young and the vulnerable.”

Catholic Professional Standards Limited, a non-profit which promotes child protection by auditing and reporting on Catholic entities, developed and released the standards. CPSL was founded in 2016.

The 10 standards include committed leadership, informed children, partnership with families, complaints management, and ongoing education. They will focus first on children, and be extended to vulnerable adults.

“Much has already been achieved,” Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane commented. “But more work remains to be done and we are committed to making the changes required.”

He added that “in addition to what’s been done and is being done locally, new guidelines from Pope Francis are helping to strengthen the Church’s global response to child sexual abuse –although many of the protocols and processes in place in Australia go beyond what the Pope is asking.”

The pope promulgated universal norms on sex abuse reporting which took effect June 1, days after the adoption of the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards. The norms of Vos estis lux mundi establish that clerics and religious are obliged to report sexual abuse accusations to the local ordinary where the abuse occurred. Every diocese must have a mechanism for reporting abuse. When a suffragan bishop is accused, the metropolitan archbishop is placed in charge of the investigation.

Archbishop Coleridge also said the Church in Australia is implementing the relevant recommendations of the Royal Commission.

A report from the Australian Royal Commission released in December 2017 found serious failings in the protection of children from abuse in the Catholic Church and other major secular and religious institutions.

The Royal Commission urged a program to compensate the victims of institutional child sex abuse, which the Church in Australia established in July 2018.

It also proposed that priests be legally obligated to disclose sexual abuse sins which have been admitted in the confessional, or face criminal charges.

The Australian bishops’ conference responded positively to nearly all the Royal Commission’s recommendations, but has defended the sanctity of the confessional seal.

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