This is a simple matter of the Church's interests and influence being put above the law of the land and the well-being of the people.
Up to the present day a killer whose crimes are known by the the priest can continue killing unless that priest breaks the sanctity of the confessional.
We know that priests who were known by their fellow clerics to have sexually abused children were allowed to continue that abuse because the interests of the church were placed above the well-being of children in their care; the abuse often being facilitated by superiors moving them on to parishes where their crimes were not known, and refusing to pass on the information to the authorities.
Whatever way this is viewed, it is direct complicity in serious - life-ruining, and occasionally lethal crimes.
I wonder what would happen if, say Muslim clerics attempted to shelter behind the sanctity of their office by refusing to divulge serious crimes, would they be granted the same immunity, or would it be a case of "Guantanamo - here I come"?
One of the few good things to arise from the abuse scandals is that, at long last the grip of the church has been loosened to the extent that it can never again be re-applied, and not before time.
Jim Carroll