HELENA, Montana (LifeSiteNews) — Montana Catholic priests appear to be safe from an effort to threaten them with jail time unless they turned over the faithful for admitting to abusive behavior during counseling.
The Montana Senate Judiciary Committee voted to table the legislation on Wednesday. Tabling a bill is effectively the same as killing it. It killed the bill after failing to adopt an amendment that would protect the clergy-penitent privilege but still remove some protections for priests and ministers of other faiths. The committee then voted to table the original bill.
Senate Bill 139 originally would have thrown priests in prison for up to five years or fined them thousands of dollars if they did not violate the Seal of Confessional when they learned of abuse.
The bill would have forced the priests to choose between automatic excommunication or jail time for simply fulfilling their duties as priest to provide confidential Confession to Catholics.
Senator Mary Ann Dunwell, who frequently mentioned how she was a “cradle Catholic” before she stopped practicing the faith, amended the bill earlier this week in collaboration with the Montana Catholic Conference and the Diocese of Helena. However, even the amended bill removed some exceptions, according to Dunwell, a Democrat. It would still require priests to reveal abuse they learned of during counseling sessions with Catholics.
The bill also replaced the clear clergy-penitent privilege in existing law with a protection for the vaguer “canon law or church doctrine,” raising questions about why a new bill was even needed.
The committee killed the original bill seven to two, even with co-sponsor Sen. Cora Neumann voting to table.
While “stakeholders” were allegedly consulted, testimony revealed, according to Senator Barry Usher, that not everyone was involved in rewriting the bill.
— Matt Lamb (@MattLamb22) January 31, 2025
The religious freedom concerns with the bill were too much to overcome. Committee members cited the feedback they received from Catholics and others criticizing the legislation in various forms.
Prior to the hearing earlier this week, Dunwell, the sponsor, and Sen. Sara Novak, a co-sponsor, largely ignored questions about religious freedom issues when asked by LifeSiteNews.
“No,” Novak, a Democrat, told LifeSiteNews last week when asked if the bill had been reviewed for religious freedom issues.
Dunwell also originally dismissed questions from LifeSiteNews about canon law and excommunication. However, she then attempted to address those concerns with local Catholic leaders following national media coverage and apparently local criticism.
“I have spoken to various faith communities” and “members of the Catholic clergy” across the country, Dunwell stated last week. She said that clergy told her they could grant absolution for sins and still report abuse.
LifeSiteNews asked about the excommunicable offense of violating the Seal of Confession and how the clergy would be able to report abuse without being excommunicated. “You know that’s really off the subject of the bill, you’re going to have to ask them that,” Dunwell said during the phone interview; however, she did not provide the names and contact info of the clergy members whom she spoke to when asked during a follow-up email.
Pressed for clarification on how it is “off the subject,” she said the question deals with “faith communities and canon law.”
One priest did speak in support of Dunwell’s original bill, however. Fr. Jim Connell is a retired priest incardinated in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
He is actually not allowed to hear Confessions anywhere in the world because he publicly advocates that priests be allowed to break the Seal of Confessional.
“The removal of Father Jim Connell’s faculties to hear confessions and grant absolution in the sacrament of reconciliation remains unchanged,” Fr. Nathan Reesman, vicar for the clergy of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, told LifeSiteNews via email on Tuesday.
“This restriction will remain in place as long as Father continues to falsely claim that there can ever be some exception to maintaining the confessional seal,” Fr. Reesman said. “We firmly oppose any weakening of the legal protections of the clergy penitent privilege.”