"This isn't because we regard ourselves as being above the law or because we don’t think the safety of children is supremely important — we do. But we don't accept that safeguarding and the seal are mutually exclusive. Nor that we believe that abolishing the seal will make children any safer. In some circumstances it may even make them less safe," Coleridge told a press conference.
The church has reportedly accepted 98 percent of the commission's recommendations except breaking the confessional seal.
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The royal commission's report was based on over 50 child abuse-related case studies at public hearings between September 2013 and March 2017.
In late July, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Australian Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide, who was found guilty of covering up a priest's sexual abuse of minors in the 1970s.