SYDNEY (CNS): “We are committed to the safeguarding of children and vulnerable people while maintaining the seal. We do not see safeguarding and the seal as mutually exclusive,” Australia’s Catholic bishops and religious orders, said on August 31 in response to recommendations from the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, accepted 98 per cent of its suggestions, but stressed they could not accept recommendations that would violate the seal of confession.
 

SYDNEY (CNS): “The government threatens religious freedom by appointing itself an expert on religious practices and by attempting to change the sacrament of confession while delivering no improvement in the safety of children,” wrote Archbishop Christopher Prowse of Canberra and Goulburn in The Canberra Times on June 7 in response to the passing of the Ombudsman Amendment Bill 2018 by the Australian Capital Territory’s Legislative Assembly.