OLYMPIA, Wash. — For nearly twenty years, some state lawmakers have tried to remove Washington state from the list of five that do not require clergy and religious leaders to report child abuse, child neglect and child sexual abuse. For the third year in a row, Sen. Noel Frame is leading that effort in the state capitol again.
Senate Bill 5375 would add clergy members to the list of mandatory reports in the state, joining teachers and law enforcement officers. The law, if passed, would require what clergy hear in settings like confession to be reported as well.
“By keeping the seal of confession, it hasn’t made children safer. If anything, it’s protected perpetrators and the thing that could change that would be making them mandatory reporters,” said Mary Dispenza in an interview with KIRO.
Dispenza testified to the Senate Human Services Committee Tuesday about her experience as a sexual assault victim. When she was seven years old, she was raped by a priest in her church. She first divulged what happened while in confession.
“The priest perpetrator who harmed me would have been prevented from going on for four more decades raping little girls, had the priest reported the crime,” Dispenza said.
The impact abuse has had was clear in the testimony Tuesday. An impassioned Sen. Frame spoke of her own assault as a child only being revealed when she told a mandatory reporter in the form of a teacher.
“Nothing in this bill clergy-penitent privilege for prosecution, that is not the point of this bill. It is merely so that clergy will go to authorities and ask them to check on that kid and find out if they’ve been abused or neglected.” Frame said.
Frame herself has brought this bill three times, each time trying to carefully craft it through the opposition of different groups and lawmakers.
“For those I have worked with I am sorry I don’t feel like I can make a compromise anymore. I stand by the bill. This bill has been in consideration in some way shape or form for twenty years. I really wonder about all the children who have been abused or neglected and have gone unprotected by the adults in their lives because we didn’t have a mandatory reporter law and that we continue to try and protect this in the name of religious freedom.” Noel said.
Noel feels for stories like Dispenza, where disclosure in a religiously sensitive setting could have changed several lives.
The Washington State Catholic Conference, the public policy organization that lobbies for the interests of Catholic churches in the state, worries for the livelihood of its priests—saying breaking the secrecy of confession will lead to ex-communication from the Catholic Church, only reversible by the Pope.
“The bill asks the priest to choose between criminal penalties or giving up his lifelong vocation. And that’s the type of activity that the First Amendment is designed to protect against,” said Jean Hill, the executive director of WSCC.
Of the 45 states that already require reporting, just six of them require those requirements extend to confession, and two more are considering adding it. Hill says the requirement may make it easier for abusers to hide.
“If we shut off every avenue for an abuser to try and get help because they’re afraid that whoever they talk to is immediately going to go to law enforcement, we’re shutting off avenues for them to have that conversation and actually reveal that abuse and try and get help for that abuse,” Hill said.
Hill says priests are psychologically screened, trained, and required to report any abuse they learn about outside of a confessional setting.
For Sharon Huling, a Catholic part of the organization Clergy Accountability Coalition, she wants her faith to put kids first, saying the Pope should change the Church’s stance.
“My church would excommunicate a good priest if they report child sexual abuse learned about in confession, but they have excommunicated very, very few pedophile priests.” Huling testified.
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