Governor Bob Ferguson of Washington State recently signed into law legislation obligating Catholic clergy to disclose reports of child abuse heard during sacramental confessions, adding “members of the clergy” to a list of other professionals who are mandatory reporters on child abuse.
The new law, signed on May 2, has been denounced by local Catholic leaders as an infringement of Catholic religious freedom, forcing priests to choose between ecclesial and secular authority, as Washington’s bishops say that priests who violate the seal of confession will incur an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication. Similar laws have been defeated in other U.S. states over the past several years.
Washington is not the first state to enact or introduce legislation on this matter. New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia all already require clergy to disclose information about sexual abuse obtained in the context of a confession. In 2023 a flurry of legislation was introduced on the matter, with bills mandating disclosure from the confessional coming to the floor of state legislatures in Delaware, Hawaii, Utah and Vermont. In none of these states, however, did the bills in question advance to the governor’s desk. In February 2024, the Utah legislature voted instead to shield clergy from criminal and civil liability if they disclose information obtained in confessions, while not requiring them to do so.
Testifying before the Vermont State Senate in 2023, then-Bishop Christopher J. Coyne of the Diocese of Burlington (now archbishop of the Diocese of Hartford) argued that the proposed bill in that state “crosses a constitutional protective element of our faith: the right to worship as we see fit.”
California, too, has seen debate over the issue in recent years. In 2019, then-state Sen. Jerry Hill introduced a bill that would have obligated clergy to report abuse to civil authorities. The bill passed the State Senate but stalled in the State Assembly, and efforts to pass the law were eventually abandoned.
At the time, Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles termed the proposal “a threat to the sacrament of confession that would have denied the right to confidential confessions to priests and tens of thousands of Catholics who work with priests in parishes and other Church agencies and ministries.”
In California, as in other states where similar legislation was introduced, much of the impetus behind legislation to add clergy as mandatory reporters came following the publication of an explosive grand jury report on the church and sexual abuse in Pennsylvania in August 2018. Mr. Hill claimed, in light of the Pennsylvania grand jury’s findings, that “the clergy-penitent privilege has been abused on a large scale, resulting in the unreported and systemic abuse of thousands of children across multiple denominations and faiths.”
The California bill even prompted a reaction from the Vatican. In July 2019, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, then the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, released a note underlining the sanctity of the confessional seal, stating that “a confessor's defense of the sacramental seal, if necessary, even to the point of shedding blood is not only an obligatory act of allegiance to the penitent but is much more: it is a necessary witness—a martyrdom—to the unique and universal saving power of Christ and his church.”
State laws on the confessional seal can sometimes appear contradictory. Certain states, like Connecticut, count clergy as mandated reporters but include provisions for “priest-penitent privilege,” which Connecticut defines as “confidential communications made to [a priest] in his professional capacity.” In October 2019, survivors of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Bridgeport did launch a so-far-unsuccessful campaign to amend Connecticut’s law on the statute of limitations for sexual assault, but the seal of confession has not been a focus of these efforts.
According to Daniel Cosacchi, vice president for Mission and Ministry at the University of Scranton and a lecturer in the university’s theology department, legislation regulating the seal of confession threatens religious liberty and the separation of church and state.
“These bills are calling for the state to infringe upon the rights of the church,” Mr. Cosacchi told America. “The church has the right to come up with its canon law, which states very clearly that the seal of confession can never be broken under any circumstances.”
“There’s a slippery slope here,” Mr. Cosacchi said. In his view, to subordinate the seal of confession to the state’s authority is to risk the unraveling of confessional secrecy entirely. “If priests are going to be mandated to report what they hear in the confessional on topic X, whatever that topic may be, where does it end? Can they then turn around and share anything they heard in the confessional about any subject? This introduces arbitrariness.”
Party-line vote
Democratic lawmakers have been the driving force behind similar legislation in other states like Delaware and Vermont, according to Mr. Cosacchi. He noted that Washington’s legislation was introduced by Democratic State Sen. Noel Frame, adopted on a virtually party-line vote and signed by a Democratic governor. He suggested that laws surrounding the seal of confession could become partisan wedge issues, eventually leveraged by Republicans in bids for Catholic support.
“I think it would give ammunition to any Republican who wants to point fingers at Democrats and say they’re opposed to religious freedom,” he said. “It seems like an example of Democrats shooting themselves in the foot. This is a topic upon which priests of all political leanings will agree, whether they voted for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. You’re not going to find a single member of the clergy who will agree with [the Washington State government] on this.”
Yet in Mr. Cosacchi’s view, the risks of Washington’s legislation are as much spiritual as political. “Pope Francis said many times that, for some people, it takes a great amount of courage to approach the sacrament of reconciliation,” he said. “A law like this would make it much more difficult for people for whom it’s already difficult to approach the sacrament. In a time when we have seen trust in the Catholic clergy reach an all-time low, this would only hamper it even more.”
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on May 5 that it has opened a civil rights investigation into the development and passage of the Washington State law, called S.B. 5375, which it charged “appears on its face to violate the First Amendment.”
“SB 5375 demands that Catholic Priests violate their deeply held faith in order to obey the law, a violation of the Constitution and a breach of the free exercise of religion [that] cannot stand under our Constitutional system of government,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the announcement. “Worse, the law appears to single out clergy as not entitled to assert applicable privileges, as compared to other reporting professionals. We take this matter very seriously and look forward to Washington State’s cooperation with our investigation.”
In Washington, S.B. 5375 is set to take effect on July 27. It defines a “member of the clergy” as “any regularly licensed, accredited, or ordained minister, priest, rabbi, imam, elder, or similarly situated religious or spiritual leader of any church, religious denomination, religious body, spiritual community, or sect.” The legislation does not specify a criminal penalty for clergy who violate its provisions.
Archbishop Paul D. Étienne of the Diocese of Seattle said in a press release that “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.” He noted that the Archdiocese of Seattle requires priests to report abuse if the information is obtained in any other context but that the sacrament of confession remains inviolable in the eyes of the church.
The Code of Canon Law places an absolute seal of secrecy on the content of sacramental confessions, forbidding priests from divulging information learned from penitents “in any manner and for any reason” (Can. 983 §1). A priest who violates this provision incurs a latae sententiae, or automatic, excommunication.
Archbishop Étienne raised concerns about government overreach, suggesting that the state could apply similar reasoning to breach the privilege of confidentiality afforded to attorneys and clients or to doctors and patients. “Once the state asserts the right to dictate religious practices and coerce information obtained within this sacrament—privileged communication—where is the line drawn between Church and state?” he said.
“This new law singles out religion and is clearly both government overreach and a double standard,” the archbishop concluded in his statement.
The Most Rev. Thomas A. Daly of the Diocese of Spokane likewise told local Catholics that “your shepherds, bishop and priests, are committed to keeping the seal of confession—even to the point of going to jail. The Sacrament of Penance is sacred and will remain that way in the Diocese of Spokane.”
Not all Washington Catholics shared their bishops’ reservations about the legislation. The Catholic Accountability Project, an advocacy group based in Seattle, has for years lobbied for the sort of legislation that Mr. Ferguson signed last week. Cofounder Mary Dispenza told the Washington State Standard: “We know children will be safer as a result of passing this law.”
Mr. Ferguson, himself a Catholic, opened an investigation into sexual abuse and institutional coverup in the Archdiocese of Seattle in May 2024, while he was serving as the state’s attorney general. At the time, Mr. Ferguson lamented what he called Archbishop Étienne’s refusal to cooperate with the inquiry: “As a Catholic, I am disappointed [that] the Church refuses to cooperate with our investigation. Our goal is to use every tool we have to reveal the truth, and give a voice to survivors.”
In July, the Superior Court of King County, of which Seattle is the seat, declined to enforce a subpoena for documents that Mr. Ferguson’s office had sent to the Archdiocese of Seattle and the Dioceses of Spokane and Yakima as part of an investigation into whether the dioceses had used charitable funds to conceal evidence of sexual abuse.
The Archdiocese of Seattle has said that it will excommunicate priests who comply with the new law.
