Catholic Church To Excommunicate Priests
for Following New US State Law
Newsweek,
by
James Bickerton
Original Article
Posted By: gaboy,
5/10/2025 10:54:12 AM
The Catholic Church has issued a warning to its clergy in Washington state: Any priest who complies with a new law requiring the reporting of child abuse confessions to authorities will be excommunicated.
The new law, which will take effect on July 27, eliminates the long-standing confidentiality of the confessional, forcing Catholic leaders and lawmakers into a highly charged standoff over religious liberty and child protection.
However, the Archdiocese of Seattle and several bishops argue that the law not only contravenes church doctrine but crosses constitutional lines, while supporters maintain it is a crucial step to protect minors from abuse.
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Reply 1 - Posted by:
mc squared 5/10/2025 11:13:46 AM (No. 1947987)
A difficult problem. Should a priest remain mum if he knows a child is being abused, and if not, is it a slippery slope?
OTOH, how many 'good' Catholics who confess their sins will admit to abusing children?
40 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
chumley 5/10/2025 11:17:25 AM (No. 1947989)
If the goal was to protect children we might have something here, but it isn't. The goal is to get priests to violate their vows and thus weaken their faith. One of communism's big long term goals is to eradicate faith. This will be a step along that road.
74 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Namma 5/10/2025 11:21:23 AM (No. 1947994)
Separation of church and state. Tell the state to take a hike!
47 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
The Remnants 5/10/2025 11:23:55 AM (No. 1947996)
I would hope so The "seal of confession" is not an idle phrase. If someone wishes to unburden themselves, they should "confess" to a therapist, and work from there. They should be made accountable.
17 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
jalo1951 5/10/2025 11:43:01 AM (No. 1948001)
Tell the confessor he needs to turn himself in and hope he does it OR say 20 Hail Marys and I'll see you next time. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place. So a man asks for forgiveness and then goes out and rapes a child again. And you know it. I am not a Catholic and obviously I am not a priest taking confessions so I do not know what I would do. This is an interesting question for an ethics class to discuss. I know there are some who would say a priest should never say anything and then there are those who say how can you let him continue to rape children. Glad I am not in their shoes. But the church has taken a stand which they are entitled to do.
18 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
aliciacolon 5/10/2025 11:45:00 AM (No. 1948003)
The seal of confession is sacrosanct and priests have always faced excommunication,
39 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Venturer 5/10/2025 11:57:09 AM (No. 1948005)
How can the Government prove that a child molester actually confessed to being a child molester.
The Government has no way of knowing what was said in a confessional.
Even if the child molester states he confessed, it is his word against the priest using the 5th Amendment.
The only way this law could actually come in to effect is if a priest broke the silence of the confessional.
In which case he should be removed from the priesthood.
It's a helluva argument. You see the priest also has a confessor. His confessor is also bound, and even though the priest's confessor listens to a priest in the confessional that he molested children, that priest cannot tell the Church.
But this isn't about the sacrosanct rule of Confession, this is a direct attack on the Catholic Church
26 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
WWIIDaughter 5/10/2025 12:01:47 PM (No. 1948006)
The Council of Trent per the Catholic Catechism makes clear: If a person confessing is given a penance that he has no intention of fulfilling, then the Act of Confession is invalidated. I'll leave it to the theologians at the Vatican to continue ignoring the Catechism (like the lib Supremes are ignoring the Constitution) to give an answer as directed by Pope Leo. In my prep Vatican II mind, there is no Sacrament if the person confessing has no intention of doing the assigned penance. The way to solve this is for the priest to give this penance: "You have 24 hours from this moment to turn yourself in to the police with a full statement of your crimes and you must commit no more crimes during the next 24 hours." If the sinner doesn't turn himself in, there is no Sacramental Seal of Confession and the priest is required to report the crimes.
31 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
DrOstrow 5/10/2025 12:16:31 PM (No. 1948013)
I would never want to face God KNOWING that I could have prevented the abuse of a child ( or many children ) but instead kept my promise TO THE CHURCH and ALLOWED the child(ren ) to continue to suffer ! Don't get me started on events that I have read about over the years regarding young boys and, shall we say, some priests.
On Judgement Day, I KNOW who I am going to face regarding what I did and did not do in this life
and it sure ISN'T the Catholic Church or its 'leaders'.
27 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
f64 5/10/2025 12:23:17 PM (No. 1948018)
What if this law is used to entrap priests with false confessions by having antifa/DNC operatives posing as devout Catholics, telling lurid tales of sexual abusing young children to priests in the confessional? Why am I even asking this question? Of course it's going to happen, no "What if's" about it.
25 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
lawdoc 5/10/2025 12:34:14 PM (No. 1948023)
While I am not Catholic, I was under the impression that the confessor was anonymous and the priest should not know him. If this were the case, how would the priest know who to disclose to law enforcement?
35 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
MaMe2 5/10/2025 12:45:57 PM (No. 1948027)
Bingo #1. If they had any conscience, they would seek help, not absolution. No point confessing a sin and continuing the behavior. Why would the government care, when they treat habitual offenders like victims? Plus, how would they know what a priest heard from a confessor?
13 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
chance_232 5/10/2025 12:49:40 PM (No. 1948029)
The confessional has been sancrosanct for longer than North America was colonized by Europeans. Funny, I don't hear politicians demanding defense lawyers spill the beans on their clients.
I would be willing to bet that priests have a few tools in their toolbox when they hear confessions like these. For example, a casual comment to someone to keep an eye on a child.
22 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
philsner 5/10/2025 1:21:58 PM (No. 1948041)
How will they enforce this law? Impossible. It is simply meant as a threat.
See this for what it is - leftists seeking to destroy Christianity. It will fail.
28 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
mc squared 5/10/2025 1:52:20 PM (No. 1948053)
Oh, the irony of priests hearing confessions of child abuse.
12 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 5/10/2025 1:53:36 PM (No. 1948054)
First thought regarding this is what if the person making the confession of child abuse is another priest. The Catholic church has been embroiled in a sex scandal for what seems decades.
10 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 5/10/2025 2:06:35 PM (No. 1948056)
Are Catholic Priests any more "special" than Doctors or Nurses, who for years have been required by law to report such things?
Jesus Christ died a substitutionary death while bearing the sins of the entire human race in his corporeal body on a Roman Cross. That means that there are NO intermediary "agents" between God the Father and the Believer in Jesus Christ regarding individual sins, even horrific sins, which may even be criminal offenses. Priests perform no needed function in the Christian way of life. Nowhere in Scripture is confession of sins to a member of the clergy mentioned as being required, or even recommended. Jesus Christ, shortly after bearing our sins for 3 hours in stygian darkness while on the Cross, spoke one word in koine Greek, "τετέλεσται," (Tetelestai), which means, "It is finished." All mankind's sins had just been forgiven by God the Father. The Greek tense actually tells us more, namely, "it was "finished in eternity past with the result that it is finished for all time." Once a Believer, "always a Believer. As Jesus Christ, Himself, said in John 10:28 - "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of My hand."
All Clergy should obey the laws of the nation in which they reside.
11 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Kate318 5/10/2025 2:18:33 PM (No. 1948059)
This is not a US law. It is a Washington state law. You have to read far enough past the deliberately dishonest headline to find out that the US DOJ is investigating whether or not this law violates religious freedom.
18 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
thefield 5/10/2025 2:33:16 PM (No. 1948066)
As pointed out a couple of years ago in a sermon. a priest does not remember who tells him what after 3 minutes after a confession, if by chance it was a face to face confession. If it is done from behind a screen the priest will have no way to know. After 20 to 100 confessions at a time the priest would not know anyway.
13 people like this.
Seems like a useless law. I doubt if these people feel shame, or desire to repent.
13 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
EQKimball 5/10/2025 3:36:41 PM (No. 1948085)
Giving lawyers, therapists a privilege denied to clergy is a denial of Equal Protection.
13 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
Tusker 5/10/2025 5:14:58 PM (No. 1948108)
Well, what Leo can, and should do (and for all intents and purposes won’t) is identify, confirm, and excommunicate every child molesting priest. Then address the child sexual exploitation driven by illegal immigration by the cartels, and oligarchs, including those in the U.S. where countless numbers are unaccounted, and presumed being abused.
In short, come down off the “big problem” bee-es high horse and Holy Father up to what is hideous a blind eye reality.
10 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
FLCracker 5/10/2025 5:38:06 PM (No. 1948111)
You think this is the first time in history there has been a conflict between governments and the Catholic ban on priests reporting what they hear in Confession?
The penalty was the same in all those other times as it is reported in this headline.
6 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
kono 5/10/2025 6:09:45 PM (No. 1948117)
A priest has to be prepared to be framed for murder or burned at the stake rather than violate the seal. And they aren't even permitted to alter the way they breathe afterwards, based on anything they hear in the Sacrament.
But many Confessors (the ones hearing confessions) can't remember anything heard in confessions.even before a Penitent finishes confessing.
4 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
bighambone 5/10/2025 7:54:41 PM (No. 1948135)
Anyone, ranging from a good Catholic, to a person who is not a Catholic at all, who professes to some other religion can walk into a Catholic Church confessional booth, as no ID is required, and claim to confess anything they wish, true or false, to the Catholic Priest who is there hearing confessions at the time. Therefore that Priest has no idea of the identity, false or true, of the person confessing his or her sins to him in the confessional booth. Beyond all that if the priest will not tell about what criminal acts are confessed to him under threat of being thrown out of the Catholic Church, you can bet your boots that any person confessing that he or she sexually abused a child or children is not going to tell either, so if the Priest and the person confessing will not tell anything of that sort to the secular police servicing the area, How is any such crime ever going to be successfully prosecuted? Clearly the Democrats, before they passed their law, that certainly appears to be a violation of Church and State, must have been aware of all the above information.
11 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
dovestar 5/11/2025 12:28:10 AM (No. 1948186)
It's off topic to question whether Confession to a Catholic priest is biblical or not. But for clarification, please see John 20:21-23. It's there in black and white and has existed in the Church, both East and West since the beginning.
9 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
mifla 5/11/2025 4:36:06 AM (No. 1948207)
If I were a member of the clergy, I would be insulted by this statement by the Catholic Church. Instead, the Church should have simply condemned the law as unconstitutional and stated that all priests should ignore it.
3 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
Lawsy0 5/11/2025 6:18:30 AM (No. 1948214)
"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's."
5 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
crashnburn 5/11/2025 8:18:56 AM (No. 1948265)
Preserve the confidentiality of confession. Period. Also, part of the penance must be for the penitent to report their crime(s) to the authorities.
Additionally, the Church must provide legal representation to those priests who are charged with a crime when they don't report the child abuse, all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
6 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
Old Army Vet 5/11/2025 8:25:36 AM (No. 1948268)
Just another way that the state of Washington is trying to get around the First Amendment of the US constitution. Liberal progressives hate God and all He stands for. Freedom of Religion is in the first amendment for a reason, leave it alone libs.
13 people like this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
janjan 5/11/2025 9:29:43 AM (No. 1948287)
I’m not Catholic but I’m standing solidly behind the Church on this one. The liberals love to talk about ‘separation of church and state’, which is nowhere in the Constitution, but easily toss it when they perceive it as a lack of control by the State.
7 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
Yuban 5/11/2025 9:45:21 AM (No. 1948294)
Does this mean that priests would have to report themselves when they are the abuser. I can understand why most are against this warning. Catholic law is man made law. I would prefer they followed Gods law but I am not Catholic. I am a Bible believing, simple man, with no interest in organized religion. Everyone have a blessed day.
3 people like this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
Zigrid 5/11/2025 10:18:03 AM (No. 1948316)
The relationship with my priest in confession is sacred...and trying to come between a priest and his flock is fruitless....so now it's okay for a priest to tell all to whom????...you see what the past four years of governmental control brought US...women were jailed for praying God's words ...well I would have gone to jail if it had been me....so good for them...they can wear it as a badge of honor....easy to see wny obama...the muslim...set this in motion....
4 people like this.
Reply 34 - Posted by:
velirotta 5/11/2025 11:22:13 AM (No. 1948333)
What is most important here? To save the life or basic well-being of a child, a Catholic priest should be willing to sacrifice his priesthood, putting the desires of the God of Heaven first.
5 people like this.
Reply 35 - Posted by:
ARKfamily 5/11/2025 12:33:12 PM (No. 1948359)
Keeping in mind #28's comment, it makes me wonder if the priest have read the Bible from beginning to end. Confession is not just about confessing, it is also about repentance and if a person has done something wrong, being humbled would mean suffering the consequences. . .
4 people like this.
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