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Catholic Church vows to excommunicatepriests
who follow new Washington state law requiring
them to report confessions to cops

Original Article

Posted By: FormerDem, 5/8/2025 10:47:29 AM

The Catholic Church has vowed to excommunicate any priest who follows a new Washington state law requiring clergy to report information about child abuse to law enforcement — even if given in the privacy of the confession booth. Priests in the Evergreen State had enjoyed something similar to attorney-client privilege when hearing confessions, but the new law — which Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson signed on Friday — revokes that protection for discussions of child abuse or neglect.

Comments:

This is not a vow and not a spiteful or defiant innovation. It is Canon Law and goes back to before there was a State of Washington. Namely, several sins carry the penalty of automatic excommunication: apostasy, heresy, schism (CIC 1364:1), violating the sacred species (CIC 1382), physically attacking the pope (CIC 1370:1), consecrating a bishop without authorization (CIC 1387), and directly violating the seal of confession (1386:1). Considering that people are unlikely to confess sins without this seal, there is nothing to be gained for law enforcement by abolishing it. This law is empty of positive meaning.

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Reply 1 - Posted by: TruthFetish 5/8/2025 10:54:06 AM (No. 1946938)
I'd reckon EVERY Catholic knows what OP shares regarding confession. The nuns told us this in kindergarten.
13 people like this.

Reply 2 - Posted by: Cindiana 5/8/2025 11:10:18 AM (No. 1946947)
Let's say that Washington pushes this through. Then what? A priest goes to law enforcement to report a person who sought forgiveness for child abuse. Officer: "What is the person's name?" Priest: "I have no idea."
19 people like this.

Reply 3 - Posted by: jeffinitely 5/8/2025 11:11:35 AM (No. 1946950)
Let's just add this to the law: "...requiring DEFENSE ATTORNEYS to report information about child abuse to law enforcement..."
19 people like this.

Reply 4 - Posted by: Strike3 5/8/2025 11:12:32 AM (No. 1946951)
What next, bugs in the confessional? While child abuse is despicable, it is more of a mental illness. The police are not to be trusted and have other means of enforcing those laws.
8 people like this.

Reply 5 - Posted by: bpl40 5/8/2025 11:12:52 AM (No. 1946952)
recent events however indicate that Catholic priests are the very people from whom little boys need protection!
15 people like this.

Reply 6 - Posted by: OkieTom 5/8/2025 11:27:36 AM (No. 1946960)
#5, while the Catholic Church has had its problems with sex/child abuse, the incidences among other Christian faiths /organizations has been shown to be similar and in many cases higher. The problem in public schools is much worse, but the media will not tell you that. And # 3 has it right: let’s hear the screaming if defense attorneys had to do reveal this info.
20 people like this.

Reply 7 - Posted by: Venturer 5/8/2025 11:59:03 AM (No. 1946976)
The more I read about Washington state the happier I am not to be living there. Of course the law is unConstitutional, no State can dick around with a person's religion.
20 people like this.

Reply 8 - Posted by: Sully 5/8/2025 12:15:45 PM (No. 1946987)
Nothing to do with child abuse muchachos. The party that partners in human sex trafficking of children cares Nothing about children. This is an attack on faithful Christians period.
20 people like this.

Reply 9 - Posted by: Californian 5/8/2025 12:19:20 PM (No. 1946990)
4, raping a child is not a mental illness. It is one of the most vicious and horrific crimes. You make it sound like, "Oh, he was just not having a good day when he raped that little girl, maybe some aroma therapy will help!" Despicable.
8 people like this.

Reply 10 - Posted by: udanja99 5/8/2025 12:22:32 PM (No. 1946992)
I believe that the Archbishop of Washington has already told the governor to pound sand.
7 people like this.

Reply 11 - Posted by: Jethro bo 5/8/2025 1:14:31 PM (No. 1947009)
Didn't Meritless Garland already try to infiltrate the Catholic Church with spies? Seems this is the state of Washington's attempt to turn priest into spies.
5 people like this.

Reply 12 - Posted by: bighambone 5/8/2025 1:18:48 PM (No. 1947011)
If the confessor, and the priest hearing the confession do not tell, how is law enforcement in Washington State ever going to know that such a confession of child abuse ever took place? Chances are if that provision of Washington State law is ever enforced and prosecuted, you have to figure that the high up appeals courts will throw the case out as a violation of the separation of church and state.
5 people like this.

Reply 13 - Posted by: Tennman 5/8/2025 1:28:57 PM (No. 1947021)
And don't fool yourself into thinking it'll only be this issue. Just a crack in the door - way more to come. Good for the Catholics - got this one right.
11 people like this.

Reply 14 - Posted by: franco 5/8/2025 1:57:40 PM (No. 1947039)
The Catholic Church may have to inform the faithful that it can no longer offer confession within the State of Washington. Then it should sue the State of Washington and for religious discrimination, and take it all the way to the US Supreme Court (assuming the lesser courts side with the Demonrat government in Washington). If it's also possible to sue the legislators and executive branch employees in Washington penniless, that should be done as well. The only way this kind of infringement of Constitutional rights stops is for the people doing the infringement to feel the full weight of the consequences. When they can hide behind a shield of "sovereign immunity" they can also pass along the financial hit to innocent taxpayers.
4 people like this.

Reply 15 - Posted by: JubilationTCornpone 5/8/2025 2:12:52 PM (No. 1947041)
Why is just the crime of child abuse singled out? Why not order priests to forego confessions of murder?
4 people like this.

Reply 16 - Posted by: Sunhan65 5/8/2025 4:24:10 PM (No. 1947099)
If you know a child has been harmed or is being harmed in this way, and you don't do everything within your physical power to stop it, you are culpable for your inaction. I feel about this issue the same way I feel about things that police officers should do sometimes but usually don't: break the law, do what's necessary and right, and then suffer the consequences--i.e. you lose your badge. There are times when you have to do what human decency demands, and if those times require you to give up some other job or calling as a consequence violating canon law, so be it. Protect the child. Call the cops. (I realize in retrospect, everything I've said above applies to what the priest should do, and I haven't addressed in any way the child abusers' need for confession and absolution. That's because I don't care what happens to them in this life or the next as long as the former is brief and the latter is the damnation they deserve.)?
4 people like this.

Reply 17 - Posted by: Miss T 5/8/2025 8:33:50 PM (No. 1947202)
"Priests in the Evergreen State had enjoyed something similar to attorney-client privilege when hearing confessions...." Please, reporters, educate yourselves on your subject matter. Attorney-client confidentiality and spousal confidentiality relate to secular evidentiary law. In American courts of law, both of these exclusions may be waived. Making the clergy mandatory reporters for child abuse / neglect will violate ancient canon law. A priest who reports information, which he learned from a penitent in confession, is subject to excommunication. Our American laws protecting the sacred confidentiality of confession and reconciliation derive from 6th Century Roman Catholic England. The public policy then as well as now is that confession and reconciliation is beneficial not just for the penitent, but also for the society at large. It is an opportunity for the penitent's spiritual growth and education. Governor Ferguson states that he is a Roman Catholic, but his support for this law, inter alia, shows that he is RCINO. I would bet that if Ferguson was ever confirmed as a Catholic, that he has not opened the Catechism book even once since that day. He has not educated himself on the First Amendment, either. This law is a naked attempt to destroy Christianity.
2 people like this.

Reply 18 - Posted by: mifla 5/9/2025 6:11:21 AM (No. 1947339)
If I were a priest in the state of Washington, I would feel insulted by this proclamation from my archdiocese. The statement should have said that the law was illegal and immoral and that no priest in the archdiocese would be required to support it.
0 people like this.

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