IRELAND: Proposed Bill Will Command Priests To Report Confessed Pedophilia

Ireland is in an uproar over a proposed bill which would make it a crime for priests to withhold crimes of pedophilia revealed in the confession booth.

Irish priests have vowed to defy a new law forcing them to report details of sexual abuse revealed in the confessional box. Ireland’s Justice Minister Alan Shatter is to introduce new legislation which will force the clergy to reveal all details disclosed in confession. But priests have vowed to defy the law despite the threat of a 10-year jail sentence after the introduction of the mandatory reporting legislation. The 800 strong Association of Catholic Priests has even told the Irish Independent newspaper that its members will flout the Shatter law.

Dublin Bishop Raymond Fields: "The seal of the confessional is inviolable as far as I am concerned, and that's the end of the matter." The new penalty for any Irish citizen who withholds knowledge of child abuse, priest or not, would be up to ten years in prison.

RELATED: As you'd expect, America's loudest defender of accused priests, Bill Donohue, is ever so pissed about the proposed law.