Blocked a law that would force to violate the secret of confession in Washington

On July 18, a Federal Court blocked a controversial Law of the State of Washington (United States), which would force priests to violate the secret of confession, putting themselves on the side of the Catholic bishops of the State who had filed a lawsuit against the measure earlier this year.

The law, approved by the State Legislative Assembly earlier this year and Signed by Governor Robert Fergusonadded to the clergy to the list of people forced to denounce abuses in the state. However, it did not include an exemption for the information obtained in the confessional, explicitly leaving priests outside the exception of “privileged communication” that is granted to other professionals.

In the failurethe district judge David Estudillo said that “there was no doubt” that the law supposed a burden for the free exercise of religion.

“In situations in which (priests) listen to confessions related to abuse or child abandonment, (the norm) places them in the position of complying with the requirements of their faith or violating the law,” the judge wrote.

Estudillo said that the approved measure “modifies the law in force only to force the members of the clergy to denounce cases of child abuse or negligence.”

As written, the law “is not neutral or general application”, since “it treats religious activities in a less favorable way than comparable secular activities,” he said.

The State could have forced the clergy to denounce the cases, allowing a limited exception for confession, said Estudillo, as more than two dozen states have already done.

The order prohibits the Washington State Government applying the law.

The sentence occurs after the bishops sued Ferguson, to the State Attorney General Nicholas Brown and more than three dozen prosecutors for the controversial law of complaint.

On July 15, these prosecutors presented a motion before the court in which they promised not to appeal the court order against the law or any final judgment of the Court in exchange for being exempt to a large extent of the ongoing judicial procedures. Ferguson and Brown are still subject to demand.

The lawsuit argued that the law violated the free exercise of religion protected by the first amendment by violating the secret of confession, as well as the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment and the State Constitution.

The Washington Bishops initiative had the support of a wide variety of defenders, including the United States Catholic Episcopal Conference, The United States Department of Justice, A coalition of orthodox churches y Bishop Robert Barron from Winona-Rochester, Minnesota.

Barron argued before the Court, earlier this month, that a penitent who is “aware that the priest could (not to mention that he must) share with others what has been entrusted to the most sacred confidentiality” of confession “

“It would be very reluctant to approach” to the sacrament.

For its part, the Department of Justice said that the law “seems to point to the clergy as not suitable for asserting applicable privileges, compared to other professionals who are obliged to inform”, such as lawyers, doctors and social workers.

The law even caused international criticism when the brotherhood of the Catholic clergy – which represents more than 500 Roman Catholic priests and deacons from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom— He issued a statement Last month in which he criticized the approval of laws “they try to force priests ordered to reveal the identity and content of what a penitent has confessed.”

The group criticized governments by specifically pointing out priests, while at the same time “respect and defend the institutions of the lawyer-client and medical-patient privilege.”

Although Washington’s bishops had presented an aggressive challenge against state law, church leaders assured the faithful that the secret of confession would remain inviolable regardless of any legal stipulation in one sense or another.

“Pastors, bishops and priests” are “committed to maintaining the secret of confession, even to the point of going to jail,” said the Bishop of Spokane, Thomas Daly.

Canon law establishes That a priest who directly violates the secret of confession is automatically excommunicated. Barron declared before court earlier this month that “few religious practices are more misunderstood than the sacred secret of confession in the Catholic Church.”

Catholics believe that penitents looking for the sacrament of confession “speak to the Lord and listen to him” through the priest, the prelate wrote.

As a result, “absolutely nothing must be brought on the path of a sinner looking for this source of grace,” said Barron.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.