Washington state’s Catholic bishops sued Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson and dozens of county prosecutors May 29 over a new law, set to take effect in late July, that forces priests to violate the seal of confession by reporting child abuse if they learned about it during the sacrament.
According to the lawsuit, the bishops claim that the law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments by targeting religious practices, overstepping state powers to intrude on church affairs, and specifically burdening priests with the requirement to report child abuse. The law allows other individuals to retain confidentiality, including spouses, attorneys, relatives of abused children, and others.
Seattle Archbishop Paul D. Etienne decried the law in a May 4 statement, two days after Ferguson signed it. He noted that the Church in the US is committed to preventing child abuse, especially child sexual abuse, as priests are already required to be mandatory reporters unless the seal of confession prohibits them from doing so.
“This new law singles out religion and is clearly both government overreach and a double standard,” he stated. “The line between Church and state has been crossed and needs to be walked back. People of every religion in the State of Washington and beyond should be alarmed by this overreach of our Legislature and Governor.”
Under the law, priests who do not report child abuse learned of in the confessional could face up to 364 days in jail, a $5,000 fine and potential civil liability.
The bishops are represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and several other law firms. According to Northwest Catholic, Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Becket, said, “It’s hard to imagine a more brazen attack on faith than state bureaucrats policing the sacrament of confession.”
“Washington’s law isn’t about protecting kids — it’s about jailing priests for following the Church’s ancient faith practices,” he continued. “We’re asking the court to step in and stop the state from turning a sanctuary for the soul into a tool of surveillance.”
According to an editorial by Manhattan Institute legal policy fellow Tim Rosenberger and Manhattan Institute collegiate associate Tyler Turman, the law “is attacking religion under the guise of child protection.”
Rosenberger and Turman added that the law violates previous court rulings — both nationally and in Washington itself — that protected the seal of confession. They anticipate that the Department of Justice, which has opened an investigation into the law, will strike it down.
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