Canberra, Aug 14 (IANS): Catholic clerics should face criminal charges if they do not report sexual abuse disclosed to them during confession, an Australian inquiry recommended on Monday.

It is among 85 new proposals following a four-year landmark inquiry into institutional abuse in the nation, the BBC reported.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which began in 2013, heard harrowing tales of abuse from thousands of victims, which were never passed onto the relevant authorities.

The recommendations will now be put to legislators.

In some cases, paedophile priests had made admissions during Church confession in the knowledge that they would not be relayed to police, according to the inquiry.

Other proposals include changes to police interviewing techniques, removing a "good character" consideration in sentencing, and methods to make testifying not as traumatising for victims.

The commission heard that 7 per cent of the nation's Catholic priests abused children between 1950 and 2010.