Breaking the Seal - a podcast by BBC World Service

Whatever is said in the confessional stays in the confessional; it is a sacred, unyielding law throughout Catholicism, but in Australia it's now being challenged.

In certain states laws are being introduced so priests can now be fined if they are found to have withheld information from the confessions of child abusers. Priests across the country have said they won’t adhere to the law, saying it breaks a sacred trust.But the Catholic church in Australia isn’t on steady ground. The law change is a recommendation from a Royal Commission which, over five years of hearings, revealed the enormous extent of sexual abuse by clergy and its cover up. Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, is facing a trial over charges related to abuse and an Archbishop has been found guilty of withholding information on a paedophile priest.

Breaking the seal of the confessional can mean excommunication, withholding evidence could mean prosecution. It's a story that pits Church law against civil law. Janak Rogers will hear both sides of the row, hearing how the church is fighting to retain one of its most important laws.Image: Placards outside the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney on March 1, 2016 (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

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