New law requires priests to break the stamp of confession to report child abuse

The secret of the confessional in the Roman Catholic Church is so sacred that every priest it violates is automatically excommunicated.

In the state of Washington has a new law that requires clergymen to break the seal when child abuse has been revealed, a heated battle inflamed in which the State, the Roman Catholic Church and the Ministry of Justice are involved.

The legislation, signed last week by GOV. Bob Ferguson, a democrat, requires that members of the clergy report child abuse or neglect to authorities, even if that knowledge occurs during the sacrament of the confession. It has many Catholics indignant in the state and throughout the country.

“This law is a clear burglary in the practice of our Catholic faith,” said Archbishop Paul D. Etienne van Seattle. “The state now penetrates into the practice of religion, and if they can get away with it, where do we draw the border?”

The Ministry of Justice apparently agrees. On Monday, the Ministry announced that it opened an investigation into civil rights in the law, which called it ‘anti-Catholic’. The research will focus on the ‘apparent conflict’ of the law with religious freedom under the first amendment.

In a majority of states, clergymen are considered compulsory reporters, which means that they are legally obliged to report to the authorities if they suspect that a child is being abused. In most states, however, the State retains protection for the clergy-penitent relationship. In seven states, including New Hampshire and West Virginia, there is no such exception. (In Tennessee, the privilege is only refused in cases of sexual abuse of children.) It is not clear that priests in those states have been prosecuted or punished about not reporting abuse that they learned during a confession.

A similar bill in California was withdrawn in 2019 by its sponsor after a return, including critics who pointed to it that it would be difficult to maintain. The Vatican also seemed to weigh and release a document in the run -up to the vote in California and emphasized that the confidentiality of confession is an “intrinsic requirement” of the sacrament.

President Trump has ‘anti-Christian prejudices’ to eradicate a priority for the Ministry of Justice. In April, Hardet Dhillon, the head of the Civil Rights division of the department, rewritten a mission statement For the division to prioritize research into issues such as anti-Christian bias and transgender women’s participation in sport, a sharp shift for an agency that has been known for decades for its work on racial equality.

Mrs Dhillon said in a statement that the investigation in Washington was at an early stage. “The investigation into potential violations in the first amendment free exercise, involving all religions is a core function of the DOJs Civil Rights Division,” she wrote, “and has been established about administrations since the division.”

In a statement, Governor Ferguson said: “We look forward to protecting Washington children against sexual abuse in the light of this ‘research’ of the Trump government.”

As written, the new law in Washington applies to clergymen of all religious traditions. Senator Noel Frame, the sponsor of the bill, said she was initially inspired by Research report In Jehovah’s witness churches in the state, who discovered that accusations of child abuse were partially hidden because of the beliefs of the church.

Marino Hardin, a former witness of Jehovah, reached contact with Mrs. Frame about three years ago about an earlier version of the account that contained an exception for spiritual Penit tent in the privilege. He was worried because Jehovah’s Witnesses use secret, use internal processes to investigate abuse, and the church pointed to the Catholic confession to justify their trial before the court.

“The bill started because of Jehovah’s witnesses,” said Mr. Hardin in an interview. “Leaving an exception for the confessional chair when it comes to compulsory reporting, any religious group that had allowing a mandate for the secret would say:” We don’t have to report anything. “

Mrs. Frame was also informed by her own experience as a survivor of sexual abuse from childhood. When she asked her teacher, a mandatory reporter, for help, she said in an interview, the conversation led to her abuse.

“Calling anti-Catholic feels deeply political because it is incorrect on his face,” said Mrs. Frame, a Democrat. The law defines a spiritual member as a “minister, priest, rabbi, imam, elder or in the same way religious or spiritual leader of every church.”

The witnesses of Jehovah are not concerned with political activities, including lobbying, as a matter of religious faith, and are silent about the details of the law. A spokesperson for the church, Jarrod Lopes, said in a statement that the Church is disrupting child abuse and strictly follows local and national laws on reporting to the authorities. He described the internal research process as a “purely religious procedure treated by the elderly” and said that it only dealt with the status of the accused in the church.

Public reactions to the law have mainly focused on Catholicism in part because of the unique sacramental role of confession in the Catholic Church. The priest cannot always identify the penitence, nor is it common for priests to ask the type of detailed follow -up questions that would help legislative enforcement to identify victims and perpetrators.

“The purpose of confession is not to collect information. It is to reconcile the sinner with God, so that the sinner receives God’s grace,” said Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane in an interview, adding that “there is 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’ were dedicated to retain the seal of confession – even to the point to go to prison. “

The Catholic Church has established a large number of new training courses and reporting procedures since revelations of widespread sexual abuse in the church in the nineties and early 2000s, including rules about reporting abuse of law enforcement and collaboration with authorities in investigations.

The Reverend Bryan Pham, a Jesuit priest who is both a lawyer and a Canon lawyer, said that the priests law places in an “impossible situation” because they are confronted with a prison sentence or excommunication.

“The law has good intentions, but it is really misled,” says Father Pham, a university teacher at the Gonzaga University School of Law in Spokane, Wash.

During the signing of the bill on Friday, Governor Ferguson pointed out that he is a Catholic who has been confession and had an uncle who had been a Jesuit priest for many years.

“I am very familiar with that,” he said reporters. “Protecting children is the first priority.”

Alain Delaquérière contributed research.