"The laws of most nations honor the seal of confession, "
And thereby hangs the greatest arrogance of all of the church Joe - the law of the Church is above that of the nation - an so, above the interests of the people.
That cannot be possibly justified and it cannot, and hopefully will no longer be tolerated.
Many of these crimes were allowed to continue because of the sanity of the confession - and please don't tell me that the culprits would never have confessed without that protection
There is little value in a confession that cannot (and was not used) to stop further abuse - absolving the culprit only serves to make them feel more comfortable in their crimes.
No body or individual should ever be placed over national laws to protect crimes.
Jim Carroll