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Catholic church to excommunicate priests for following new US state law
- FollowingTheDao 1y agoAnd there it is...literally nothing is sacred anymore.
- harimau777 1y agoCan you elaborate? It has LONG been the practice that confession is absolutely confidential without exception. The idea is that they believe that there should be absolutely no barriers to confession when the eternal fate of the confessor's soul is at stake. There's also the matter of the slippery slope. E.g. what happens when a government decides that raising LGBTQ kids or attending Pride constitute child sex abuse?
- tbrownaw 1y ago> It has LONG been the practice that confession is absolutely confidential without exception. The idea is that they believe that there should be absolutely no barriers to confession when the eternal fate of the confessor's soul is at stake. I thought there were similar protections for a couple non-religious professions, and for spouses.
- harimau777 1y agoThere are. However, my understanding is that at least some of them are not absolute. E.g. an attorney or therapist would be obligated to alert law enforcement if their client told them they were planning a violent crime. The Catholic Church absolutely forbids breaking confidentiality even in circumstances like that.
- trollbridge 1y agoYes, as that concerns future acts, not past ones. Catholicism doesn’t offer absolution for a sin you haven’t committed yet but plan to. Lawyers don’t advise clients on engaging in criminal activity; they could however answer questions like “I’d like to do X but need your advice if it’s a criminal act or not.”
- supplied_demand 1y agoIsn’t abandoning kids suffering actual abuse today because there may be fake abuse in the future just another form of slippery slope?
- FollowingTheDao 1y agoWow, this is weird. Why are you are getting the wrong idea from my comment? I mean that the government is over riding the sacredness of Catholic confession, thus "nothing is sacred anymore". I am on the side of the Catholic Church on this just to be clear.
- harimau777 1y agoAh, my mistake.
- FollowingTheDao 1y agoThanks. I have to wonder why people are DVting my explanation. Odd.
- pjc50 1y agoDoes this cover all religions and denominations? It's not clear from the article which doesn't name the bill or provide a link to the full text.
- paxys 1y agoWhat other religions even have this privilege?
- SauciestGNU 1y agoDoesn't really matter, the legally pertinent question is if a new religion were to form tomorrow, would its clergy also be bound by this law, and the answer seems to be yes.
- cgriswald 1y agoYes. (18) "Member of the clergy" means 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, or person performing official duties that are recognized as the duties of a member of the clergy under the discipline, tenets, doctrine, or custom of the person's church, religious denomination, religious body, spiritual community, or sect, whether acting in an individual capacity or as an employee, agent, or official of any public or private organization or institution. https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Passed%20Legislature/5375.PL.pdf https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Se...
- nabla9 1y ago>(a) When any member of the clergy, practitioner, county coroner or medical examiner, law enforcement officer, professiona school personnel, registered or licensed nurse, social service counselor, psychologist, pharmacist, employee of the department of children, youth, and families, licensed or certified child care providers or their employees, employee of the department of social and health services, juvenile probation officer, diversion unit staff, placement and liaison specialist, responsible living skills program staff, HOPE center staff, state family and children's ombuds or any volunteer in the ombuds' office, or host home program has reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect, he or she shall report such incident, or cause a report to be made, to the proper law enforcement agency or to the department as provided >(b) When any person, in his or her official supervisory capacity with a nonprofit or for-profit organization, has reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect caused by a person over whom he or she regularly exercises supervisory authority, he or she shall report such incident, or cause a report to be made, to the proper law enforcement agency, provided that the person alleged to have caused the abuse or neglect is employed by, contracted by, or volunteers with the organization and coaches, trains, educates, or counsels a child or children or regularly has unsupervised access to a child or children as part of the employment, contract, or voluntary service.
- Spivak 1y agoThe fact that there isn't a carve-out for confessions under seal of the confessional is weird since they get one for everything else. If you try to deputize priests for literally God's sake you destroy the point of the sacrament. Which would be fine in the abstract if there wasn't a long-standing precedent for respecting it. Washington trying to break E2EE with God lol.
- trollbridge 1y agoCivil law has generally recognised the confessional seal. For example, priests can’t be compelled to testify on anything they hear in the confessional. Another example is attorney - client privilege. Attorneys and priests are expected to do important duties for the good of society and thus have certain privileges.
- gehwartzen 1y agoJust out of curiosity as I’m not familiar with the laws here; If a random person on the street confesses a crime (child sexual abuse or otherwise) to me am I required to report it or do I simply have the right to report it if I so choose?
- trollbridge 1y agoNo, because you aren’t a mandated reporter, although in PA the laws are so broad that a volunteer who sweeps the Sunday school classrooms ends up being a mandated reporter. It would be unconstitutional to require all citizens to “report” crimes they hear other people confess to them, for rather obvious reasons, although I’m sure some state government will try that next.
- jll29 1y agoWhat I can say is that police must not ignore a crime they learn about (in most countries). The same may not hold for ordinary citizens.
- AIoverlord 1y ago[flagged]
- theoreticalmal 1y agoBeliefs are the historical foundation of law, and for good reason.
- AIoverlord 1y agoThats not true at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history And im not unlawful just because i don't believe in a God. Its the opposite: Im more lawful than a believing person. I'm not just following something because someone else said that another person with some form of 'authority' read a book and interpreted some old text from 2000 years ago in a specific way. I'm questioning rules based on logic and social environment.
- trollbridge 1y agoYou have a belief system, and that’s fine. But it’s still a belief system, and it forms the foundation for why you would be lawful. If I lived under the Stasi regime or the regime the preceded it, I might not be such a “lawful” person. I believe some laws today are ones I wouldn’t follow, partly guided by religious belief. For example, I am not interested in turning in illegal aliens just for being here illegally regardless of if laws are passed saying I have to do so.
- AIoverlord 1y agoThe base of my 'belief system' is not arbitrary as it is with religion, which i referenced in my original comment. We can argue about my 'laws' and you can change it. With religion based 'laws' you can't as its comes from an 'authority'.
- trollbridge 1y ago
- jimlawruk 1y agoSo does this law apply to other confidentiality protections like attorney client privilege, or just the confessional seal? If you confess to a lawyer, does the lawyer have to report you?
- nabla9 1y agoAn attorney must break privilege if they suspect their client may commit an additional crime, or if concealing the information would bring financial or bodily harm to another person. Catholic priest on the other hand may take confession every day from child abuser who works with children and says nothing.
- trollbridge 1y agoHow far should breaking the confessional seal go? Murder? Sure. How about other violent crimes? Damaging property at a protest? The police will think they need this information. Catholic doctrine is even minor sins should be confessed. Priests will eventually need to govern a Miranda warning to penitents entering the confessional. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you confess can and will be reported to law enforcement. You have the right to have an attorney and a canon lawyer present in this confessional. If you can’t afford a canon lawyer, please join the years-long waitlist for one. Knowing these rights, do you still wish to confess to me?”
- nabla9 1y agoPriests should be treated like any any other person. Past crimes, generally no responsibility. Danger or repeating a crime, obviously. What is there to discuss?
- ndriscoll 1y agoAny other (generic) person is not obligated to report suspicion of crimes. This seems to specifically be targeting religious leaders purely based on their status among their fellow practitioners.
- firesteelrain 1y agoI am trying to understand the Catholic Church’s side here. At first blush, this sounds bad because the only real accountability is done via civil authorities because if it’s handled only within the Church then the only penalty are things like defrocking or banning from the church. But the Church isn’t a legal authority. I also know that the Church is supposed to encourage the reporter to self report to civil authorities and seek help. The church also lack the ability to prevent abusers from harming vulnerable people. At the same time I understand their position on clergy-parishioner privilege.
- trollbridge 1y agoThe Catholic Church has long held that a confession is somewhat similar to praying directly to God and that anything heard is to be kept confidential, other than priests discussing amongst themselves in the aggregate. Priests aren’t to take any action based on what they hear in the confessional. In theory, it should be anonymous, but that is largely symbolic these days. A priest can certainly tell someone at the confessional how to seek absolution and that could include turning themselves in. It should be kind of obvious that id the state wins here, abusers simply won’t confess in confessionals anymore. Not exactly a big win for the state.
- wat10000 1y agoPeople aren’t perfectly rational. Some will feel compelled to confess anyway. Some will not know about this requirement, or believe the priest won’t follow it, or just think they’re special and won’t get caught. I don’t imagine it will be a big effect, but it will catch some.
- harimau777 1y agoOn the other hand, there could be numerous innocent people who would be unwilling to confess because of the risk that the priest will report to authorities. It's not hard to imagine a world where a government passes laws requiring priests to report homosexuality, immigration status, or attendance at anti-government protests.
- varelse 1y ago[dead]
- xphos 1y agoYeah I think the State misses the point here if people are confessing for Child Abuse currently because they won't be jailed that simply won't do that if they can be jailed. The whole point of confession of things like this is not to just say you have a get a out of free jail card but to push people to actually repent wholely. Its certainly a religious morals argument but I think its also a strong argument that being able to admit something to priest can be a first step toward pushing people to turn themselves in. Granted I don't know the statistics on how often that this happens this way I think if there was no ability to talk about it people would just not talk about it and couldn't be convinced or pushed morally by another human being to tell the authorities.
- camcil 1y agoThe State of Washington is leading an effort to require this for any crime admission by first specifying child abuse to rally the troops. There is nothing surprising that a 2,000 year old institution isn't willing to change their sacred traditions over a state law-- even when gaslit using specific actions such as child abuse.
- pjc50 1y agoIt's not gaslighting when religious instututions and especially the US Catholic Church have recently had significant scandals of inaction over child abuse Piercing confessional secrecy is going too far. But the case that all religious or other organizations that regularly supervise children need to be willing to report and deal with abuse by their staff is very strong.
- camcil 1y ago> the case that all religious or other organizations that regularly supervise children need to be willing to report and deal with abuse by their staff is very strong I completely agree, and would never argue against that. It appears that this is precisely their angle - to back them into a lose-lose corner. It is a 100% guarantee that the Church is not going to remove the 2,000 year requirements of a sacramental seal to appease a state law. So this will be booked as more "evidence" of the Church failing to protect children.
- dsign 1y agoWhat is child abuse in this context? I assume is "child sexual abuse"? Or, does sending them to work on a factory also count? In any case, we should be wary of, as a society, condoning any kind of witch hunt. In this case for example, on first read it seems that the overreach is somehow for the specific case of "child abuse", meaning that anything else, including murder, should be okay to confess, no?
- trollbridge 1y agoThe statue is vague! It could cover neglect. Perhaps a mother goes to the confessional. “Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. I am deep in debt and couldn’t afford food this week for my kids. So I stole $50 from the cash drawer at my job.” Now the priest is aware of a possible child neglect situation. What next? Should he consult a lawyer to find out if he needs to report this or not? Does he report the entire confession? Or just the child neglect part?
- Asooka 1y agoMaybe this will finally be the limit of pushing bad legislation in the name of "Think of the Children!"
- aaronrobinson 1y agoThe church is not above the law, no matter what traditions it has nor fancy names it ascribes to them.
- harimau777 1y agoHow do you reconcile that with freedom of religion and freedom of conscious?
- Tadpole9181 1y agoI pretty easily reconcile that you can't perform ritualistic sacrifice or honor killings regardless of your religious beliefs. So saying a Priest must report ongoing child sex abuse is actually remarkably easy to reconcile.
- aaronrobinson 1y agoYou can have all the freedom you want within the law.
- dtagames 1y agoSo the church gets rid of people who report child abuse, but not people who commit it. That's a pretty clear statement on where they stand on their version of "god's rules" versus any actual benefit to people or society.
- jmclnx 1y agoConsidering all other recent posts here that have been flagged, some even distantly related to tech items, I wonder why this was not flagged. It has nothing to do with tech.
- tbrownaw 1y agoIt currently seems to be mostly interesting philosophical discussions about why this is even a thing, rather than having devolved into rote mudslinging along the standard fault lines. Which means that at least for now it's still worth seeing.
- Levitz 1y agoI'm not even sure how this would work in practice, confessions are private, if the abuser was to accuse the priest, he could just deny it.
- Tadpole9181 1y agoLike how all mandated reporters work: CPS or law enforcement begin an investigation.
- an_ex_catholic 1y agoEx-Catholic here. The issue in the discussion so far seems to be the priority of the confession ritual vs childrens' rights. In that regard, Catholicism has a doctrinal commitment to parent worship, both in the "honour thy father and mother" commandment and the "main story" being the blameless son's sacrifice at the behest of the infallible father so he can carry out his plans. Indeed, priests are called "father" as well. Childrens' rights are simply not prioritized. As a concrete example, my "devout Catholic" grandfather abused his "devout Catholic" daughter who in turn abused me. I think in some cases they didn't even see this behaviour as wrong, but if they confessed it, they would have gotten absolution of their soul from their confidant "father" because hurting your kid isn't considered a mortal sin. It's long past due to abolish these superstition-based carvouts on childrens' rights, whether it be this case or other issues such as infant circumcision. If someone is feeling guilty about hitting their kids, they don't need comfort, forgiveness, and understanding -- they need a terrestrial authority to correct their behaviour and protect the kids.
- camcil 1y agoFirst and foremost, I am sorry that you experienced abuse. That is never okay. I will not pretend to act like I understand the depths of forgiveness, or agree that it is possible for certain things. Abuse should never be justified under religious teaching- period. From the Catholic Church's point of view, there should be no worship except to God. Not parents, not saints, not statues: God only. Likewise, it is certainly a mortal sin for a parent to fail in their responsibility towards education of their children- the Catechism of the Catholic Church (the official text that comprehensively explains doctrine, beliefs, and teachings) specifically points that the first steps toward bearing witness to that responsibility is by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule.
- GeoAtreides 1y agoSomewhere in a ex-communist country in Eastern Europe, the corpse of the secret police starts showing signs of life, animated by the sheer amount of irony coursing through its decayed body. I never knew I would see the day the West would pass the same authoritarian laws used behind the iron curtain to spy on their own population. To be fair to the West, at least it's packaged neatly in a 'for the children' package; the communist totalitarian regimes didn't bother with explanations or 'reasons'. In case it's not clear: priests were compelled to spy and report on the population by the secret police.
- BryantD 1y agoThis law does not compel anyone to spy. It does say that priests, like teachers and psychologists, have a duty to report if they have "reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect." I see arguments on both sides of this but it's not compelling priests to spy. It's removing religious freedom protections from a long-standing precedent.
- GeoAtreides 1y agoLike I said, it's packaged neatly, but the end of result is the same: breaking the sanctity and confidentiality of the confession, exactly like in the totalitarian regimes... and making priests agents of the state.
- BrandoElFollito 1y agoThe fact that priests protect the pedocriminals is to me a proof of their cowardness: they prefer to sacrify the life of children today to protect their own in the afterlife. I hope that when they meet their creator he will show them the way to hell. If he rewards them for their practices, well, they will be in good company. Heads up to this US state. I am ashamed that my country, allegedly supporting freedom and equality (France) never had the balls to do that.