The Church of England is wrong to rethink confession

God knows one tries, but there are times when it’s difficult to take the Church of England entirely seriously. And the news that it is considering doing away with the seal of confession, whereby clergy are absolutely prohibited from disclosing the sins penitents bring to them in confession, is just such an occasion, even if the proposal gets nowhere. In the run-up to the General Synod (you did realise it’s happening today, didn’t you?), the bishop at Lambeth, the Rt Rev Tim Thornton, reported that there were “differences of view about the retention or abolition of the Seal” among bishops. It was raised as an issue by the church’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and is due to be discussed by various committees this year, prior to a meeting to decide on the “pros and cons of retaining the seal” in December.

Pros and cons? The Australian Catholic bishops, who are facing a legal requirement on priests to share details of child abuse revealed in confession with the police, have said simply that Catholic priests should be prepared to go to prison rather than break the seal of confession.