The Washington State Legislature is threatening the seal of the confessional again. From the Feb. 14 WSCC bulletin:
SB 5375 Concerning the duty of clergy to report child abuse and neglect. This bill heads to the Senate floor for full debate. Despite ample evidence that mandating clergy reporting without exception has no positive impacts on curtailing child sexual abuse, the bill maintains the attorney-client privilege while denying the First Amendment rights of clergy and parishioners. Please contact your Senator and ask them to vote No on the bill unless it its amended. Our clergy are mandatory reporters on 99% of the church property and 99% of their time. We simply ask for the confessional to be exempt during the Sacrament of Confession.
I will point you to:
- The op-eds I wrote when the Legislature tried to do this in 2023: https://frmoore.com/2023/03/28/editorials-on-sb-5280-hb-1098/
- The timeline I provided in 2023 about how our Senators and Representatives in this area voted: https://frmoore.com/2023/04/21/april-21-2023-pastors-note/
The Representatives and Senators for both District 40 and 42 are the same as they were in 2023, so I would reiterate my request to encourage Sen. Shewmake to stay strong in her defense of the confessional, and to let the other five know where you stand on preserving the seal of the Confessional.
I think the strongest argument here is that the attorney-client privilege is being exempted, but not the confessional. This is a very clear sign that our legislators believe that courts matter but religion does not.
Fr. Moore 