The facts are hard to tweeze out of this story.
It seems that a girl told a priest in a confessional that a 64 year old man was raping her and the priest treated that as a confession?
How is it a confession if the child didn’t do anything???
“It seems that a girl told a priest in a confessional that a 64 year old man was raping her and the priest treated that as a confession?”
She was either seeking advice because she had no way to stop the rapist, or she might have been guilty of allowing the rape to happen. You can’t possibly know which it was.
We don’t know what was said in the confessional by either party and the perp is now deceased. The reason this is coming to light is because the girl, now 18, and the parents want money from the Church. They know the priest cannot tell if he counseled her to tell authorities, she can, however, say anything she wants and he cannot defend himself.
If she was in a confessional with the priest, then it was a confession.
But it does seem that there was an "easy out" for the priest at the time....simply tell the girl to come and talk to him outside the confessional.
But after having heard the girl’s confession, the priest could have advised the girl to report the rape to the proper authorities without breaking his vow of silence.
After all, the priest is there to hear confessions but also to advice the penitent how to avoid a particular sin in the future.