(FāVS News) — Several Orthodox churches filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Washington on Monday (June 16) over a recently passed law mandating clergy to report child abuse and neglect, even if discovered within the confessional.
The conservative legal group Alliance for Defending Freedom, which filed on the churches’ behalf, argued in a press release that the state is singling out priests by punishing them for respecting the confidence of the confessional while preserving privacy for disclosures in nonreligious situations.
“Washington is targeting priests by compelling them to break the sacred confidentiality of confession while protecting other confidential communications, like those between attorneys and their clients,” said John Bursch, ADF senior counsel and vice president of appellate advocacy. “That’s rank religious discrimination.”
The Orthodox Church of America said in the press release that “Every state, including Washington, honors the clergy-penitent privilege.”
In fact, Washington joins seven other states — New Hampshire, West Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Texas — in denying privilege for confidential communications in cases of child abuse and neglect, including in the confessional.
The churches that filed suit Monday include the Orthodox Church of America, the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America and numerous other Orthodox jurisdictions.
They join the Catholic bishops of Washington, who filed a federal lawsuit against the state on May 29 after Gov. Bob Ferguson signed the bill into law May 2.
The Catholic and Orthodox churches forbid priests to break the seal of confession as part of their respective canon law. If they do, they will not only be committing a sin, they will be excommunicated.
Mandatory reporters such as doctors, mental health counselors and domestic violence advocates already suspend their privileged communication ethic in cases of child abuse and neglect or when there is suspicion of imminent harm to an individual.
Senate Bill 5375 marks a milestone for legislators in Washington, long one of the most permissive states on child abuse reporting. Sen. Noel Frame, a Seattle Democrat who is a childhood sexual abuse survivor, is only the latest legislator to work toward this change. She proposed the bill in three different versions over the last three legislative sessions.
Washington’s new law, going into effect July 27, adds back “members of the clergy” into the state’s mandatory reporters law code; they had been removed in 1975. It also does not include clergy-penitent privilege to private conversations if child abuse or neglect come up in the Catholic confessional.
The Orthodox and Catholic lawsuits follow on the heels of the U.S. Justice Department’s announcement that it had opened a civil rights investigation on the law for violating the First Amendment rights of Washington’s Catholic bishops, just a few days after the bill was signed.
“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 in a press release.
The DOJ press release charged that this law is “anti-Catholic” and applies to communications received in the “absolute seal of confession that applies to Catholic priests.”
“We take this matter very seriously and look forward to Washington State’s cooperation with our investigation,” Dhillon said.
Supporters of the bill argue SB 5375 doesn’t single out Catholic clergy.
“We believe … certain aspects for the new law are being misconstrued,” said Sharon Huling, member of the Clergy Accountability Coalition. “‘All members of the clergy’ will be required to report credible knowledge of child abuse. Catholics are not the only religion who have used Washington’s loophole in the law to avoid reporting child abuse.”
The law doesn’t apply to Catholics or Orthodox priests alone. It also would make Independent Fundamental Baptist pastors and leaders, Jehovah’s Witnesses elders, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leaders, Protestant church leaders and spiritual counselors of all kinds accountable to report child abuse and neglect, including child sexual abuse, even if the conversation was considered private.
Huling adds that members of the clergy still will not be required to testify in court when it comes to the safety of a child, whereas other mandatory reporters would.
“We believe that the law will be upheld as constitutional as the Washington state religious freedom clause clearly states that ‘Absolute freedom of conscience in all matters of religious sentiment … but the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness or justify practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the state,’” Huling said.
This story was written in partnership with FāVS News, a nonprofit newsroom covering faith and values in the Inland Northwest.