JOURNALISTS: TOOLS OF SATAN OR JUST MENACES TO CIVILIZATION? Associated Press: Confessionals are a “clergy loophole.” “The Associated Press published a piece this week casting the confessional seal as sinister. That its reporters would even think to turn a prosaic defense of this venerable privilege into a scandal is a measure of our secularized times. Only until recently would anyone dare suggest that priests be coerced into revealing what they hear in confession. That cause over the years has been restricted to a handful of rabidly atheistic politicians. But now, apparently, the AP has joined it.”