The proviso to Canon 113 of 1603 was not a substantive enactment of the seal of confession, but rather was intended to ensure that the canon did not conflict with a continuing canonical duty not to disclose sins revealed in confession. The 1947 Canon Law report proposed two draft canons, one regulating which priests could hear confessions, and one enacting the seal substantively. In response to criticism of these drafts, Archbishop Fisher proposed what became paragraphs 1–3 of Canon B 29. Attempts to restrict hearing of confessions to certain categories of priests were eventually abandoned in favour of what became paragraph 4. The draft canon embodying the seal was replaced by a draft Clause based on the proviso, but Government lawyers indicated that it would not receive royal assent. Instead, the proviso was left in place. An act of Convocation based on it was also passed to signal the Church’s continued espousal of the seal as a doctrinal principle. The Convocations eventually agreed to delete the proposed new Clause, while a canon explicitly retaining the proviso when the rest of the 1603 code was repealed received royal assent. That no priest would in practice break the seal, even if instructed to do so by a judge, was almost universally accepted.

Until recently the faculty jurisdiction did not extend to trees in churchyards. This article explains how trees in churchyards became subject to that jurisdiction and explores the complicated law relating to churchyard trees.1

This article explores the canon law of the Old Catholic Churches, which have been in full communion with the Anglican Churches since 1931. It discusses the different traditions of canon law which form the basis of the present constitutions, their common features and their main characteristics. It also addresses two types of challenge for the near future: finding an appropriate balance between episcopal and synodal competences, and dealing with the parallel jurisdictions on the European continent.