Priests do not consider themselves to be above the law but will not back down on breaking the seal of confession even if they face the prospect of criminal charges.
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president Archbishop Mark Coleridge has criticised laws requiring priests to break the seal of confession to reveal child sexual abuse as ill-conceived.
He said the seal of confession is inviolable and a non-negotiable part of Catholic religious life.
"This isn't because we hold ourselves to be above the law," he told reporters on Friday.
"We don't accept that safeguarding and the seal are mutually exclusive, nor do we believe that abolishing the seal will make children any safer.
"In fact, in some circumstances, it may even make them less safe."
It is the one recommendation of the child abuse royal commission the ACBC and peak body for religious orders, Catholic Religious Australia, say they cannot accept.
The states are at various stages of considering introducing a criminal offence for failing to report child sexual abuse and extending mandatory reporting laws to include priests even if information has been disclosed in a religious confession.
Archbishop Coleridge said if there were prosecutions then the law would take its course.
He likened the seal to legal privilege or journalists being jailed for refusing to reveal their sources.
Archbishop Coleridge said legislation abolishing priest-penitent privilege was based on a lack of understanding of what happens in confession and it was difficult to see how the law would work in practice.
"The bishops and religious leaders have the utmost respect for the rule of law.
"But we believe this proposed law is ill-conceived and impracticable.
"It won't make children safer and it will most likely undermine religious freedom, that's why we think it's bad public policy."
He said most confessions are anonymous and also generic, meaning someone would not necessarily say they had abused a child.
He questioned how he could tell police that someone whose name he did not know had confessed to abusing a child he also could not identify.
The ACBC argues that removing the seal means priests lose the opportunity to point an offender or victim in the direction of authorities or other assistance.
