DOJ challenges WA clergy reporting law, citing First Amendment violation

The Justice Department is filing legal action against the State of Washington over its new law, Senate Bill 5375, which requires members of the clergy to report known child abuse, even if it’s revealed during Confession.

Those opposing the law, including Archbishop of Seattle Paul Etienne, argued it violates the free exercise of religion for all Catholics, and requires Catholic priests to violate the confidentiality seal of Confession. Violating the confidentiality seal that accompanies the sacred rite of Confession subjects them to immediate excommunication from the Catholic Church.

“After the apostles were arrested and thrown into jail for preaching the name of Jesus Christ, St. Peter responds to the Sanhedrin: ‘We must obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29),” Etienne said. “This is our stance now in the face of this new law. Catholic clergy may not violate the seal of Confession – or they will be excommunicated from the Church. All Catholics must know and be assured that their confessions remain sacred, secure, confidential, and protected by the law of the Church.”

The Justice Department’s lawsuit argued that the violations imposed by this new law include deprivations of the Free Exercise of Religion under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“Laws that explicitly target religious practices such as the Sacrament of Confession in the Catholic Church have no place in our society,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division stated. “Senate Bill 5375 unconstitutionally forces Catholic priests in Washington to choose between their obligations to the Catholic Church and their penitents or face criminal consequences, while treating the priest-penitent privilege differently than other well-settled privileges. The Justice Department will not sit idly by when States mount attacks on the free exercise of religion.”

Advocates for the bill: ‘Children must come first’

Child protection advocates have long pushed for closing what they see as a dangerous loophole in reporting laws.

Proponents said the bill is essential in ensuring no institution, religious or otherwise, is above the law when it comes to protecting children from abuse.

When the bill was being debated before the committee vote, Representative Natasha Hill (D-Spokane) said that the bill’s notoriety may lead to people not speaking about child abuse during Confession.

“We’ve heard, maybe this bill isn’t going to require as much mandatory reporting as maybe we think it will,” she said. “If folks are not going to clergy, into the confessional, to confess these sins in hopes of forgiveness, then this isn’t going to have as big of an impact on our clergy.”

Washington is one of only five states that does not require clergy to report suspected child abuse, a fact that supporters say has led to systematic cover-ups and unpunished crimes.

Hill also addressed the separation between church and state issue.

“I think that this is an opportunity for church and state to really work together, to make sure folks get the support, the treatment, the interventions that they need,” she said. “Nobody is above the law, that there’s no veil, there’s no curtain to hide behind when it comes to child abuse, and especially sexual abuse.”

The Department’s motion to intervene in Etienne v. Ferguson is pending before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

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