Orthodox Churches and Priest Sue Washington Governor Over Clergy Reporting Law

New court filings show that several Orthodox churches and a priest are suing the state of Washington and Governor Bob Ferguson over a newly implemented law that requires clergy to report suspected child abuse.

The plaintiffs named in the filings are the Orthodox Church in America, the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, the Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of the Americas, the Western American Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and Timothy Wilkinson. A separate lawsuit by Catholic bishops in Washington state challenging the same kind of mandatory reporting law has also been reported.

The dispute centers on the sacrament of confession. According to the filings, confessions made to an Orthodox priest are confidential, and priests are not permitted to repeat what they are told in confession. The new Washington law makes it a crime for clergy not to report child abuse, including when the information comes to them during confession.

The plaintiffs say they agree that abuse should be reported, but they hold that such reports should be made only outside of confession. Their argument is that requiring priests to break the seal of confession violates the First Amendment (freedom of religion) and the Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection) of the U.S. Constitution. The churches’ stance on protecting children from harm is a matter the plaintiffs state directly, even as they dispute the method the law requires (Mark 9:42).

The organizations are asking the court to declare the clergy-confession requirement unconstitutional, to block enforcement of the new law, and to protect the confidentiality of religious confession as legally recognized.

Source: Read the original report