(LifeSiteNews) — Clergy cannot be forced to reveal what they hear during confession, the Arizona Supreme Court recently affirmed.
The unanimous ruling deals specifically with a lawsuit against Church of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) officials, but the legal principle extends to the Catholic sacrament of confession and other “confidential communication” practices in Protestant churches.
The details of the case are admittedly gruesome. Paul Adams told a Mormon “bishop” he had sexually abused one of his children. He then repeated the admission in a subsequent meeting between the church leader, himself, and Adams’ wife. A subsequent “bishop” then convened a council during which Adams was “excommunicated.”
As previously reported by LifeSiteNews, and detailed in an academic paper, the Mormon leader did attempt to intervene.
The minister then asked Adams to bring his wife to the next confession (which is more like a counseling session in the Church of Latter-day Saints) and had his wife promise to not let her husband live in the house and be near the daughters. His wife evidently lied, and Adams eventually molested two of his daughters.
The abuse went unpunished until the Department of Homeland Security, where Adams worked as a Border Patrol officer, discovered videos of the abuse online. Adams killed himself prior to trial, but his wife pleaded guilty.
Three of Adams’ kids subsequently sued the Church of Latter-Day Saints for not intervening to protect them from the abuse.
But the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed that the church council acted as clergy and were not required to report abuse. It ruled that courts should not determine who counts as clergy, as that would violate the First Amendment.
“We hold that the First Amendment protects the right of a religious institution to define who is a ‘member of the clergy’ and, absent fraud or collusion for secular purposes, prohibits factfinders from inquiring into the religious institution’s designation of clergy,” the court ruled.
Courts, in other words, should not attempt to determine if a religious entity followed its own rules or what those rules are.
Case has broader implications for religious freedom
While the case dealt with a controversy within the Mormon church, it affirmed constitutional protections for Catholics as well. A failed bill this year included criminal penalties if Catholic priests did not report abuse or potential abuse if they learned about it in the confessional.
The Catholic Church teaches that priests may not violate the seal of confession; doing so is excommunicable offense.
House Bill 2039 would have ordered priests to report any time that they learn of alleged “ongoing abuse” or even the “threat” of abuse in the confessional.
If it had become law, those who failed to abide by the measure would be found guilty of a class 6 felony, which would have carried fines up to $150,000 and two years in prison. However, that is just for a first offense. Priests who continued to violate the law, as required by canon law and the Catholic Church, could face years in prison, as LifeSiteNews previously reported.
Another court ruling has upheld “clergy-penitent privilege.”
A federal court in the state of Washington struck down a state law last year that would have also violated the rights of priests and penitents. While the ruling is not binding on the country, it does provide ammunition for backers of religious liberty in any other federal lawsuits.
Legal scholar Paul Cassell also previously analyzed the Adams’ case and jurisprudence on clergy-penitent privilege. The University of Utah law professor concluded the laws do not enable abuse, as their detractors will claim. (He also noted anti-Catholic prejudice in arguments against the seal of confession).
Cassell points out that someone who is truly sorry for abusing a child is not likely to go to confession if it will lead him to being turned into the police.
“Common sense, lived experience, and the available empirical evidence all show that perpetrators will not typically voluntarily confess to a mandatory reporter,” Cassell wrote in an academic paper. “Changing the law to conscript clergy listening to confessions into the ranks of mandatory reporters will not serve to bring abuse to light; instead, it will further incentivize concealment.”
The proposal by the professors is “likely unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and related doctrines,” Cassell wrote in a paper published in June.