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rug

(82,333 posts)
8. You're confusing confidentiality with privilege.
Thu Jul 10, 2014, 10:46 AM
Jul 2014

This amendment changes the holder of the privilege from the penitent to the priest.

A minister is only obliged to keep such an offence secret if he or she is reasonably satisfied that the penitent has already reported the offence to police.

Do you want a priest to make that subjective determination?

That's not how either the attorney/client or the doctor/patient privilege works. Those hold that there is no privilege in the first place if there is an ongoing crime.

There are very strong policy reasons for the privilege.

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