Trump Justice Dept. sides with Catholic Church to fight law requiring priests to report abuse
Washington State took a bold stand against a religious loophole that shielded predators. Now there's predictable backlash from the Catholic Church and the DoJ.
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The state of Washington has now passed a law requiring clergy members to report child abuse to law enforcement authorities even if they happen to learn about it through the act of confession.
It’s a huge breakthrough that could help children and prevent lifelong trauma, so naturally, the Catholic Church is very upset about it and the Republican-led Department of Justice says it will launch a “civil rights investigation” into the matter.
On Friday, Gov. Bob Ferguson signed SB 5375 after it had passed 64-31 in the House and 28-20 in the Senate. Washington now joins New Hampshire, West Virginia, and Guam as the only places where formal confessions of sexual abuse are not exempt from mandatory reporting rules.
Given that similar attempts have failed in recent years, the third time was finally the charm.
The bill adds “member of the clergy” to the list of mandated reporters in the state, which is not too different from what other states have attempted to do in the past. What makes this bill unique is that it specifically says clergy members would not be protected by the current law which allows certain private communications to remain private. In other words, even if you learn about abuse through confession, you can’t just hide behind that shield. You would still have to report the abuse to authorities.
That does not mean, however, that priests would be forced to testify in court about anything they heard. They merely have to report to law enforcement any knowledge of ongoing child sexual abuse.
Here’s where things get dicey. The way that law is written, it makes it seem like other forms of “privileged” communication—like doctor/patient and attorney/client confidentiality—are exempt from reporting knowledge of the abuse of children. Are priests the only people who have to break their oath of privacy?
No. And that’s a point the bill’s advocates stressed throughout this process. If anything, priests still get off lightly relative to doctors.
Domestic violence advocates, therapists and unions — all groups with “privileged communications” under state law — already lose the privilege in child abuse cases and still must follow mandatory reporting laws. Doctors can also be called to testify during judicial proceedings of child abuse cases. Clergy, meanwhile, still don’t have to testify in court during such cases — the new law only applies to reporting information to authorities.
In the past, when Democratic State Sen. Noel Frame filed versions of this bill, she had to compromise and include a carveout for “penitential communication.” For example, a version she sponsored in 2023 said that if priests suspected abuse, only to have it confirmed through confession, they would still have to report it to authorities… but if they learned about the abuse “solely” through confession, they could just sit on the information and let the child suffer more.
That bill died, ironically, after the state’s attorney general announced that three separate dioceses were being investigated for sex abuse by clergy members. Several lawmakers from both parties said they no longer wanted any exemptions for priests, but they ran out of time to pass anything that had enough support.
That’s why Frame was now attempting to pass a no-compromise version of the bill.
She explained her thinking in an emotional hearing earlier this year:
… I will say that the bill fell apart last year after the Revelation that the Catholic— three separate Archdioceses [sic] of the Catholic—Church were being investigated, which was not able to be corroborated until after legislative session last year, but that became public.
And quite frankly, it made it hard for me at a personal level to stomach any argument about religious freedom being more important than preventing the abuse, including the sexual abuse, of children.
Because everybody that's been following this bill knows that this one is personal for me, as a survivor of sexual abuse myself— an abuse that only stopped when I told a mandated reporter, which was a teacher.
So I have tried really hard over the last couple of years to find a balance and to strike a careful compromise, and I'm just here to say, for those who I tried to work with, I'm really sorry that I don't feel like I can make a compromise for you anymore, and I stand by the bill with no exemption.
As I said back then, that’s the sort of courage we needed from lawmakers when dealing with predatory cover-ups by religious leaders. You can’t compromise with people who would eagerly throw abuse victims under the bus if their mythology demanded it. Furthermore, there’s no way to exempt confession from mandated reporting when confession itself is the problem here. It gives sexual predators a way to shed some of their guilt without interfering with their actions. They don’t deserve that kind of safe space to spill their guts without penalty, but right now, religion gives it to them. This is also true of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons.
Sharon Huling with the Clergy Accountability Coalition also testified at that hearing, pointing out the irony of how the Church will “excommunicate a good priest if he reports child sexual abuse learned of in confession” even though they rarely take action against priests who are predators themselves. She also reiterated that confession would still be protected for everyone else: “The only people who have to worry about the privacy of their confession are child rapists and abusers.”
It’s a very simple ethical question, really: If someone tells you they’re abusing a child, and you had the power to stop it, would you do it?
Democrats in Washington State said yes.
The Catholic Church says no. There’s one situation where priests would rather keep a secret even if it means the abuse would continue.
One of the only voices arguing against the no-compromise bill was Bishop Frank Schuster of the Archdiocese of Seattle, who said, predictably, that it would be “impossible for a priest to comply with this bill” because “the penalty for breaking that seal [of confession] is excommunication.”
As I said at the time, that’s the sort of comment that deserves to be ridiculed and condemned. In no rational world is getting excommunicated more damning than letting a child continue to suffer sexual abuse. If you would rather protect priests than kids, then your organization should just admit the safety of children isn’t a top priority.
Schuster added in his comments that there was a clear way to fix this problem: When hearing this kind of confession, priests could just “tell offenders to turn themselves in.” (That suggestion was as comical as thinking Pete Hegseth would just stop drinking after his promotion.) Schuster then suggested working on a compromise—the same compromise that failed so many times before.
Under the new law, mandated reporters (including priests) will be required to “report suspicions of abuse within 48 hours.” If they don’t, the subsequent misdemeanor charge could land them a year-long prison sentence on top of a $5,000 fine.
Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson (who is Catholic) signed the bill and wasn’t troubled by the idea that priests are bound to uphold the sanctity of confession:
Keeping the confessional in the bill did not give Ferguson pause.
“Not for me,” he said. As a Catholic, “I’m very familiar with it. Been to confession, myself. I felt this was important legislation for protecting kids.”
That’s really what it all comes down to: What’s more important? Protecting a religious tradition or protecting children? Democrats, who have higher ethical standards than the Catholic Church, said protecting children was the priority.
The Catholic Church is now claiming the sky is falling. The Washington State Catholic Conference said in a statement that they totally care about kids… but not if it means shedding their dogma:
While we remain committed to protecting minors and all vulnerable people from abuse, priests cannot comply with this law if the knowledge of abuse is obtained during the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
What that means in plain English is that the Church swears it has no problem with priests reporting child abuse… but if someone confesses to it in a particular part of the church, inside a little box, then the priests can let the child abuse continue because… tradition.
This would not be “good trouble,” defying an unjust law. These priests would not be martyrs by sacrificing children to preserve their made-up rules. This is all a way to rationalize doing something unethical because common sense would tell you protecting children from abuse is more important than keeping an abuser’s secret.
The Catholic Conference also says this violates their religious freedom… to protect abusers.
With this law, the State of Washington is specifically targeting religious conduct by inserting the government into the Catholic tradition, namely, the highly defined ritual of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The state is now requiring priests to violate an essential element of the rite, the confidential communication between the priest and penitent in which the absolution of sin is offered.
…
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? What else may the state now demand the right to know? Which other religious practices will it try to legislate? Why is this privileged communication between priest/penitent the only one singled out? Why not attorney/client? Doctor/patient? Spouses?
This new law singles out religion and is clearly both government overreach and a double standard. 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.
Again, it’s a horrible argument. If the state fines me for driving above the speed limit, that violates my personal freedom to drive as fast as I want to. But the state has an obligation to protect others. Here, the Catholic Church insists their religious beliefs—which the rest of us are under no obligation to follow—should override the communal need to protect children. Canon Law is irrelevant. Just because your church created a loophole for child abusers to confess their sins without penalty doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to simply accept that.
Or to put it another way, if the state can’t interfere with a church’s beliefs, then the state also shouldn’t be allowed to hand out exemptions to people on account of their faith.
The argument is also specious for another reason: Suppose there was an explicit rule that said no one—including doctors and lawyers—could hide behind confidentiality when it came to abuse. Everyone was a mandated reporter. If that were the law, would Church leaders agree that the act of confession shouldn’t be exempted either? Of course not. That’s why their argument that certain professions are allowed to keep things confidential—and this law is unfairly targeting them—doesn’t hold water. They’re disingenuous when they say they’re victims of religious discrimination because they’re always going to believe they’re above the law in this situation.
Every single argument against this law boils down to certain people wanting to preserve an unethical religious tradition even at the expense of stopping child sexual abuse. That’s what you should be thinking every time a Catholic official speaks out against this law. They’re more interested in preserving a ritual than protecting children.
And now the Trump administration is getting involved.
On Monday, the Department of Justice announced that it would launch “a civil rights investigation into the development and passage of Washington State Senate Bill 5375… which appears on its face to violate the First Amendment.”
The Civil Rights Division will investigate the apparent conflict between Washington State’s new law with the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment, a cornerstone of the United States Constitution.
“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 cannot stand under our Constitutional system of government,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “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.”
She’s wrong. Clergy members are not singled out. They’re mentioned in this bill because they were exempt in the past; now they no longer are. Other reporting professionals are not bound by confidentiality when it comes to ongoing child abuse. It’s telling that the focus of her statement isn’t on children at all. Because of course this administration—led by a sexual predator—isn’t interested in stopping other ones.
A survivor of child sexual abuse herself, [Sen. Noel] Frame, D-Seattle, first tried to make clergy mandatory reporters of child abuse in 2023.
She said ultimately she isn’t too surprised at the news of the investigation.
“I shouldn’t be surprised that the Trump administration is launching an investigation into a law that seeks to protect children from child abuse and neglect,” she said in an interview.
It would be a far more compelling argument if the Catholic Church or the Trump administration had a history of protecting children. Neither one does. The Catholic Church is practically synonymous with child sexual abuse while the Republican government is actively spreading deadly viruses that hurt children while denying the efficacy of vaccines. More children have suffered, and will continue to suffer, because of those two institutions.
It’s not surprising that the two sides would team up to elevate religion over basic human decency. This is the same Justice Department, after all, that recently lifted a school desegregation order. Shielding predators is apparently the only kind of civil rights they care about.
What the “investigation” will accomplish is anyone’s guess. The administration has a habit of putting out strong public statements and never following through on them, which is why you have to pay attention to what they do and not what they say. No lawsuit has been filed yet, though that’s not out of the question.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation condemned the DoJ’s announcement, calling it a “gross distortion of religious freedom and a dangerous misreading of the First Amendment.”
“The government has a compelling interest in protecting children from abuse,” says FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott. “This law does not target Christianity or Catholicism — it applies equally to all clergy. Religious freedom does not include the right to conceal abuse. The DOJ’s position undermines both child safety and the Constitution it purports to defend.”
FFRF urges the DOJ to immediately drop this politically motivated and legally unsound investigation. Protecting children from harm must be a priority that transcends religious boundaries. It is not anti-Christian to hold clergy accountable — it is pro-child, pro-justice and pro-human rights.
Unfortunately, all of those values, under this administration, are under constant attack.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
"With this law, the State of Washington is specifically targeting religious conduct by inserting the government into the Catholic tradition"
If your tradition is abetting criminal behavior (and it most certainly is), somebody needs to step in. So fuck all the way off.
"With this law, the State of Washington is specifically targeting religious conduct by inserting the government into the Catholic tradition..."
Actually, what they're doing is insisting that the Catholic Church behave in a responsible fashion as regards the abuse of children. The fact remains that abuse of children by the hands of Catholic priests continues to this day, and if the officials of the Catholic Church cannot bring themselves in line with the law, there should be consequences for their failure.
It is long past time the Catholic Church was called on the carpet for behavior which, anywhere else, would not just instantly be castigated, but brought before the bar of justice.