The secrecy of the confessional in the Roman Catholic Church is so sacrosanct that any priest who violates it is automatically excommunicated.
In Washington State, a new law requiring clergy to break the seal when child abuse has been revealed has kindled a heated battle involving the state, the Roman Catholic Church and the Justice Department.
The legislation, signed into law last week by Gov. Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, requires members of the clergy to report child abuse or neglect to authorities, even if that knowledge arises during the sacrament of confession. It has outraged many Catholics in the state, and across the country.
“This law is a clear intrusion into the practice of our Catholic faith,” said Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle. “The state is now intruding into the practice of religion, and if they’re allowed to get away with that, where do we draw the line?”
The Justice Department apparently agrees. On Monday, the department announced it was opening a civil rights investigation into the law, which it called “anti-Catholic.” The investigation will focus on the law’s “apparent conflict” with religious freedom under the First Amendment.
Clergy are considered mandated reporters in a majority of states, meaning they are legally obligated to report to authorities if they suspect a child is being abused. In most states, however, the state reserves protections for the clergy-penitent relationship. In seven states, including New Hampshire and West Virginia, there is no such exception. (In Tennessee, the privilege is denied only in cases of child sexual abuse.) It’s not clear that any priests have been prosecuted or penalized in those states over failing to report abuse that they learned about during a confession.
A similar bill in California was withdrawn by its sponsor in 2019 after a backlash, including from critics who pointed out that it would be difficult to enforce. The Vatican also appeared to weigh in, releasing a document in the run-up to the California vote emphasizing that the secrecy of confession is an “intrinsic requirement” of the sacrament.
President Trump has made “eradicating anti-Christian bias” a priority for the Justice Department. In April, Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the department’s civil rights division, rewrote a mission statement for the division to prioritize investigations into issues including anti-Christian bias and transgender women’s participation in sports, a sharp shift for an agency known for decades for its work on racial equality.
Ms. Dhillon said in a statement that the investigation in Washington was in an early stage. “The investigation of potential First Amendment free exercise violations, involving all faiths, is a core function of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division,” she wrote, “and has been across administrations since the Division was founded.”
In a statement, Governor Ferguson said: “We look forward to protecting Washington kids from sexual abuse in the face of this ‘investigation’ from the Trump Administration.”
As written, the new law in Washington applies to clergy of all religious traditions. State Senator Noel Frame, the bill’s sponsor, said she was initially inspired by investigative reporting into Jehovah’s Witness churches in the state, which found that allegations of child abuse were kept hidden in part because of the church’s beliefs.
Marino Hardin, a former Jehovah’s Witness, reached out to Ms. Frame around three years ago about an earlier version of the bill that included an exception for clergy-penitent privilege. He was concerned because Jehovah’s Witnesses use secretive, internal trials to investigate abuse, and in court, the church has pointed to the Catholic rite of confession to justify their process.
“The bill started because of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Mr. Hardin said in an interview. “Leaving an exception in for the confessional when it comes to mandatory reporting would allow any religious group that had a mandate for secrecy to say, ‘We don’t have to report anything.’”
Ms. Frame was also informed by her own experience as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. When she asked her teacher, a mandated reporter, for help, she said in an interview, the conversation led to her abuse ending.
“Calling it anti-Catholic feels deeply political because it’s false on its face,” Ms. Frame, a Democrat, said. The law defines a clergy member as a “minister, priest, rabbi, imam, elder, or similarly situated religious or spiritual leader of any church.”
Jehovah’s Witnesses do not engage in political activities, including lobbying, as a matter of religious belief, and have remained silent on the specifics of the law. A spokesman for the church, Jarrod Lopes, said in a statement that the church abhors child abuse and strictly follows local and national laws on reporting to authorities. He described the internal investigation process as a “purely religious proceeding handled by elders,” and said it dealt only with the accused abuser’s standing in the church.
Public responses to the law have focused particularly on Catholicism in part because of the unique sacramental role of confession in the Catholic Church. The priest cannot always identify the penitent, nor is it customary for priests to ask the kind of detailed follow-up questions that would help law enforcement identify victims and perpetrators.
“The purpose of confession is not the gathering of information. It’s to reconcile the sinner with God so the sinner receives God’s mercy,” Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane said in an interview, adding that “there’s a certain kind of anti-Catholicism in the western part of the state.”
In a statement issued to Catholics in his diocese, Bishop Daly reassured them that bishops and priests “are committed to keeping the seal of confession — even to the point of going to jail.”
The Catholic Church has enacted a host of new trainings and reporting procedures since revelations of widespread sexual abuse in the church emerged in the 1990s and the early 2000s, including rules about reporting abuse to law enforcement and cooperating with authorities in investigations.
The Rev. Bryan Pham, a Jesuit priest who is both a lawyer and a canon lawyer, said that the law puts priests in an “impossible situation” because they face either jail time or excommunication.
“The law has good intentions, but it’s really misguided,” said Father Pham, an assistant professor at Gonzaga University School of Law in Spokane, Wash.
At the bill’s signing on Friday, Governor Ferguson pointed out that he is a Catholic who has been to confession, and had an uncle who was a Jesuit priest for many years.
“I’m very familiar with that,” he told reporters. “Protecting kids is first priority.”
Alain Delaquérière contributed research.
Ruth Graham is a national reporter, based in Dallas, covering religion, faith and values for The Times.
The post New Law Requires Priests to Break Seal of Confession to Report Child Abuse appeared first on New York Times.
