Confessional secrets must give way to assistance

brugge - A 57-year-old priest from Bruges has been sentenced to one month of conditional cell punishment due to 'guilty negligence' in a suicide. The clergyman did not help when a 54-year-old man...

The depressed man entrusted the priest in October 2015 during a long telephone conversation that he wanted to rob himself of life. He did so a few hours later. His widow filed a complaint with the justice department that made a case of it. According to the Public Prosecution, the priest should have warned someone else or the police.