If that's the full story, then Xenophon is right to call it ''sickening'', but it simply has nothing to do with the confessional seal. There's no confession from the abuser to reveal. The child is perfectly entitled to take his story to the police and the priest is perfectly entitled to help him do it. This case isn't about confidentiality. It's about a priest with a septic morality. I would want that priest fired. I would want the church to apologise, help prosecute the abuser, compensate the victim and make sure it never happens again. And breaking the seal of confession doesn't help any of that.

Demanding laws that require priests to break the confessional seal sounds good. It sounds tough, uncompromising, common-sense. But it's also the kind of thing you do when you don't understand the problem you are trying to solve. That's what we are witnessing here: irreligious people trying to address a religious problem with brute secular force. That might make perfect intuitive sense to the staunchly secular mind, but we need more than intuition and declarations of secular supremacy here. What matters is what works. And taking an axe to the confessional box won't work. It might even make things worse.

The anti-confessional argument rests on an assumption that the confessions are taking place. Even if that's true - and there's little evidence of it - there's no reason to assume they will keep coming. When people confess, they do so with a guarantee of confidentiality. Do we really think people will continue to confess if we take that guarantee away? And if the confessions stop, does that really help at all?

The confessional seal means the priest cannot reveal the identity of the paedophile. But he can encourage the paedophile to turn himself in to the authorities or get psychiatric treatment. He could recommend the paedophile resign from his position. He can even warn a third party that a particular child is at risk of abuse, provided he doesn't say from whom. Sure, that's not as satisfying as taking a sledgehammer to the abuser. But it's surely better than nothing, which is probably the alternative. I would rather the confession take place confidentially than not at all.

But suppose I'm wrong. Suppose a paedophile's desire for forgiveness and absolution is so strong that they are prepared to take the risk and confess anyway. Then what? Canon law prohibits a priest from revealing a confession even under the threat of his own death. Should we expect him to buckle under the threat of a prison sentence? Here it's essential to understand that any priest who violates the confessional seal faces excommunication.