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This remark made by Bishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort (pictured) completely contradicts the comments he made last week when he suggested priests should not violate the confessional seal.

He sparked outrage last week among victims' groups when he said the secrecy of confession was "above the laws of the Republic".

His comments followed the publication of a report saying during the past 70 years Catholic clergy and lay members of the church had sexually abused 330,000 children.

De Moulins-Beaufort, who is the president of the French bishops' conference, now says protecting children is an "absolute priority" for the Catholic Church.

On Tuesday he was summoned to a meeting with Gerald Darmanin, who is France's Minister of Religious Affairs and the Interior Minister - at the request of President Emmanuel Macron.

At the reportedly lengthy meeting, Darmanin says he made it clear that while French law recognises the professional secrecy of the sacrament of confession, this does not apply to disclosures that could lead to criminal cases of child sexual abuse.

"I told him ... no law is superior to the laws of the National Assembly and the Senate ... France respects all religions providing they respect the Republic and the laws of the Republic."

After the meting De Moulins-Beaufort issued a statement highlighting the "determination of all bishops, and all Catholics, to make the protection of children an absolute priority, in close cooperation with the French authorities".

He apologised and asked for forgiveness for the "clumsy" wording of his answer during last week's interview and said:

"The scope of the violence and sexual assaults against minors revealed by the report demands that the Church revise its practices in light of this reality," he said.

"It is, therefore, necessary to reconcile the nature of confession with the need to protect children".

He also reiterated his "shame and consternation" over the report's findings and promised to "carry out the reforms necessary for the French Church to gain everyone's trust".

He said he had asked the pope to meet with the report's authors in the Vatican.

One of the report's recommendations included a request for the Church to reconsider the seal of confession in cases of abuse.

While Francis has expressed his "shame and horror" over the report, to date the Vatican has strongly defended the secrecy of confession.

Source

• RFI
• Image: New Ways Ministry

Thousands more detailed accounts will be added.

The stories appear as a growing movement to improve sex and consent education in Sydney private schools extending across Australia.

Former Kambala School student Chanel Contos launched an online petition calling for better consent education in Sydney private schools.

In the 10 days since the launch, Contos has received more than 4000 harrowing accounts from former and current students.

The stories now span private, Catholic and public schools from regional NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Perth.

"The point of this is to scale it, take it nationwide. I want this to continue to be at the forefront of everyone's mind, the government's mind, because we need educational reform and societal reform. Everyone needs to be conscious of their contribution to rape culture," Contos said.

The hundreds of testimonies Contos originally shared via a confronting 70-page Google document will be migrated to the new site. Thousands more will be added in the coming weeks after they are screened for identifying details.

"I don't want this to be about pointing fingers at individuals; I want this to be about the whole discourse and structural change that needs to happen," Contos said.

The testimonies published so far have described in detail young women's experiences of their male peers from school.

Accounts told of forcing girls to perform oral or anal sex, or raping them while they were asleep or unconscious.

Individuals are not named, but most women have chosen to identify themselves by their school or graduating year.

School principals have labelled the testimonies as heartbreaking, harrowing, and "disturbing, bleak but essential reading".

Ms Contos' website - which will be hosted under the domain name "teachusconsent.com" - will also allow people to submit their own stories.

Visitors can also sign the petition for better sex education and download templates for emailing their schools or MPs.

In the future, she plans to add educational resources for parents and students. Resources to assist victims of teenage sexual assault will also be included.

Sources

• Brisbane Times
• Daily Mail UK

"He has cooperated in every way with multiple police, parliamentary and Royal Commission investigations," Fisher said.

"Everyone supports just investigation of complaints, but the relentless character attacks on Cardinal Pell, by some, stand the principle of innocent-until-proven-guilty on its head," Archbishop Fisher said.

"Australians have a right to expect better from their legal systems and the media. Even churchmen have a right to ‘a fair go'."

He said until it has, he has nothing further to say about allegations of Pell's sexual misconduct. Some of these allegations stretch back several decades.

Pell denies the allegations.

Several people have accused Pell of sexual assault. Allegations came to light last year about Pell's history of sexual crime in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation report.

At least one of these allegations was taken to court and found to be unsubstantiated back in 2002. Other accusations date back to the 1970s.

None have been proven so far.

Whether Pell will be brought back to Australia from Rome where he is the head of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy has yet to be decided.

Source

• Catholic Herald
• Crux
• Image: Xt3

Archbishop John Hepworth, who led the conservative Anglican group until he was ousted in an acrimonious policy dispute last year, had caused a sensation by reporting that he was the victim of sexual assaults in the 1960s, when he was a Catholic seminarian.

The Anglican prelate said three Catholic priests had molested him, but did not reveal their names.

However, an independent senator, Nick Xenophon, used parliamentary privilege to name Monsignor Ian Dempsey, a former vicar general of Adelaide archdiocese, as the sole survivor of those accused.

After an independent inquiry, the archdiocese found that now-Bishop Hepworth's complaints against Monsignor Dempsey were unwarranted. Bishop Hepworth then reported his allegations to the police.

The Director of Public Prosecutions has now concluded that no charges should be brought.

Monsignor Dempsey said he was relieved that he would not face prosecution, but humiliated that his name had been "rubbed in the mud".

"I can concentrate on being a good priest, and continuing to be a good priest, which is what I love doing," he said.

"The only trouble of course is once this type of thing is said and the mud is thrown I can never prove that I'm innocent."

The monsignor said if Senator Xenophon had "any integrity", he would apologise for making the allegations in Parliament — but the senator said he won't be apologising.

"I believe the only apology due here is by the Adelaide archdiocese of the Catholic Church, for the way it abysmally dealt with Archbishop Hepworth's allegations," Xenophon said.

"The individual concerned is still working, he still has his job with the church, his position has been maintained, life goes on for him. Archbishop Hepworth, by contrast, no longer has a job."

Sources:

Herald Sun

The Australian

Image: The Australian

The annual Victorian police crime statistics report

• 83% of sexual assault victims were women
• 36% of rape victims were raped by someone they were related to, lived with or were in a relationship with
• 46% were raped by someone other than this who was known to them
• 82% were raped by someone they knew
• 55% of all sexual offences other than rape occur at home

"As you look at this data, it's quite stark, it's dramatic, it's confronting to see the number of crimes that are happening behind closed doors of residential premises," Lay said.

"The community has got to get to a space where it says that this is totally unacceptable."

"I think reporting is getting better, I've got no doubt at all though that there are many, many thousands of assaults happening in the home that we simply do not know about," Lay said.

He said family violence was "having an enormous impact on mainly women, it's having an enormous impact on children".

Despite these local statistics it did not deter the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest survey awarding Melbourne the honour of being 'the world's most liveable city'.

"Australia, with a low population density and relatively low crime rates, continues to supply some of the world's most liveable cities," Economist Intelligence Unit survey edition Jon Copestake said.

Auckland, New Zealand was ranked number 10, and Wellington 23rd.

Libyan capital, Tripoli fell into the bottom 10 for the first time and Harare in Zimbabwe was ranked bottom.

Sources

• SMH
• News.com.au
• Image: Drive my Holiday