An attempt to compel priests to report accounts of child abuse heard during confession has failed in the French Parliament.

France’s Catholic Church had strongly opposed part of a bill which would have required priests to break the ‘seal of confession’ in child abuse cases. An ancient part of canon law currently binds priests to the rule of not disclosing any sins that have been confessed. It’s called the “sacramental seal” because the confession remains "sealed by the sacrament”.

Attempts by President Macron’s centrist party to change the law followed the filing of 200 lawsuits alleging abuse by former pupils at a private French Catholic school, Notre-Dame de Bétharram. More than 90 of the claims relate to sexual abuse.

Article 9 of the bill said that forbidding priests to break the seal had enabled a “climate of omerta” and a culture of “legitimising violence against children” which had allowed “criminals in schools to destroy the lives of tens of thousands of pupils.”

The Bishops’ Conference of France said it understood the need to combat child abuse, but that attempts to change the seal of confession would infringe freedom of conscience, freedom of education, and freedom of worship. It added that it would also jeopardise the autonomy of Catholic schools.

After running out of time before a deadline, the clause relating to the seal was withdrawn. The main bill, which was part of a larger focus on child protection and school violence, was adopted. 

Bishop Matthieu Rougé told La Croix that it was important to remain watchful because of “the right for the faithful who wish to do so to seek sacramental absolution in a context of strict confidentiality". 

In 2021, an Inquiry found that as many as 330,000 children may have been sexually abused by clergy and lay members of France’s Catholic church, including teachers at Catholic schools since 1950.