Loophole law could allow Irish priests to remain silent over sex abuse

The exemption for confessions is based in NATURAL LAW so any effort to mess with it will be a long effort to climb a wall that cannot be climbed. Obvious solution; no one confesses IF the priest could tell, regardless of civil or canon law. How even try to implement it? Answer; use common sense and butt out. Next move might be to force confession of voting for Sinn Fein!!!?? Never know with a government that cannot get its own business straight and cannot communicate clearly with the people on the simplest task but are arrogant enough to dictate to pope, cardinal and anyone else.

One major message available here and with the news that bishops in Italy claim there is no duty to report abuse cases to the authorities there under the 1929 Concordat. You'd have to be nuts to allow your children anywhere near a church run event with the schizophrenic inability of the catholic church to clear itself of its deranged and damaged element. How could you entrust kids to a church run retreat or something with this sort of doubt hanging over the church like a foul miasma?

They should clean up their act. They are destroying the Church !!

Can you believe it? With all the tears and crap flyng around the apologies and they still seek loopholes? I'd be steering clear of loopholes if I were them.

Always protect the child-rapists. That seems to be the way things go whether in Ireland or America.

Sacerdotal privilege as it currently exists is a legal precedent that the courts must follow, however all legislation as passed by the Dail enjoys the presumption of Constitutionality. The Courts are bound to uphold the Constitution, the legislation may be challenged under Article 26 (I think)in the High Court. IF upheld the sacerdotal privilege is no longer applicable. PS Proud Canadian The Pope does not run Ireland, the attitude to the church is much changed in Ireland, even though people think we are ruled by the pulpit,

i just dont think there should be any refuge of any sort for people who abuse children,i understand the sanctity of the confessional concept,but not for pedophiles,its beyond the boundaries of normal evil,

This doesn't surprise me the Pope has been behind all this and continues to run Ireland and everywhere else that there are Catholics. It is a tough time to be a Catholic and it just got worse.

This will certainly cause people to be afraid of the RCC - not a good policy.

"Sacerdotl Privilege" leads to the unwarranted deference paid to priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals, and puts them up on pedestals, far above us mere mortals, whether Catholic or not! Of course, one must understand, that is the way the Church designed it. In Pope Pius IX's "Syllabus of Errors," it would be a MORTAL sin to believe that any member of the Catholic Clergy would be answerable in ANY court of Law, in any country on the planet. The Vatican would take care of disciplining priests and members of the Hierarchy. Recently, in the States, we've seen how the Vatican has tried to extend her internal laws to the disciplining of nuns, which hasn't made the nuns any too happy! Now, the Vatican has stepped over the line, so watch out for all hell to break loose!

Insane like a fox. How do you think they got away with terrorizing the people in Ireland for all these decades?

This is insane. And yet the Catholic church in Ireland (and everywhere else) is wondering why attendance is way down. Shame on them. Religions (all of them) are more problems than they're worth. Time to enter the new millenium already.