Church Vs. State Law Leaves Suit against Baton Rouge Diocese in Stalemate

By James Gill
The Advocate
August 3, 2016

http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/opinion/james_gill/article_f0a45e7c-58bd-11e6-8e55-bf3669660c6f.html


It's been seven years since Rebecca Mayeux filed suit against her parish priest and the Diocese of Baton Rouge, but the case has gotten nowhere as the courts mulled the competing claims of state and church law.

The case revolves around what Mayeux told Father Jeff Bayhi during confession. The diocese has maintained that the confidentiality of the confessional should prevent her from testifying about it, but a state Court of Appeal panel ruled last week that she can't be gagged.

The vote was only 2-1, but this should have been a clear-cut issue. It would be a strange justice system that allowed defendants to evade legal liability simply by asserting the supremacy of their own doctrine.

Bayhi, being sworn to secrecy under pain of excommunication, will not be able to contradict what Mayeux says in court. But that is hardly reason enough to deny an aggrieved parishioner the right to speak and seek redress. We have judges and juries to weigh the truth of testimony.

Besides, the confidentiality rule is presumably for the benefit of penitents. It is hard to see Mayeux's desire to reveal what she said as a threat to the free exercise of religion, notwithstanding the diocese's protestations to that effect. The real threat here is to freedom of speech.

We already have a pretty good idea of what Mayeux claims she said at confession, and the confidentiality principle has in no way been compromised for others. When the sanctity of the confessional was invoked, the only beneficiary was the church itself, for Mayeux could not conceivably succeed in court if her lips were sealed on the confession issue. It is her whole case.

When she went to Bayhi, the sins on her mind were not hers, but those of another parishioner, George Charlet Jr. That was in 2008, when Mayeux was 14. According to her lawsuit, Mayeux told Bayhi on three occasions that Charlet had made unwelcome sexual overtures only to be told that it was “your problem.” Bayhi told her to “sweep it under the floor,” because too many people would otherwise be hurt, Mayeux claimed.

The next year, Mayeux's parents filed suit and Charlet died. Since then the case has bounced around, even reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, which, however, early this year declined the diocese's request to intervene after state courts had upheld Mayeux's right to testify about what was discussed in the confessional box.

Mayeux's attorneys had maintained that Bayhi was required to report Charlet's alleged abuse to the civil authorities under the state's Children's Code. The code, which makes clergy “mandatory reporters,” does provide an exemption for information provided at confession but not if there is “cause to believe that a child's physical or mental health and welfare is endangered.” Since that would presumably apply to just about any minor abused by an adult, Mayeux's attorneys doubtless thought they had firm grounds to argue that Bayhi had failed to abide by a legal mandate.

That may not be an option if a trial ever does take place, however, because state District Judge Mike Caldwell, in ruling that Mayeux was free to testify, also declared the relevant section of the Children's Code an unconstitutional infringement of a priest's religious freedom rights. Thus, unless the state Supreme Court reverses Caldwell, Mayeux can testify that Bayhi failed to help her, but cannot claim he had any obligation to tip off the cops.

It would be different if Mayeux confided in Bayhi outside the confessional, but that doesn't appear to have happened. Even if the veil of secrecy was in place, Bayhi would have been obliged by the Children's Code to urge that she contact the authorities herself, and it appears obvious from the account she gave in the lawsuit that he did not do so.

But that may be the extent of any claim she can make that the church was remiss, so this is far from the most damning sexual-abuse-of-minors litigation it has ever faced. The church has little to fear from letting Mayeux give her version of events.

Confessional confidentiality may be a sacrosanct principle, but it also proved a convenient one when the church sought to prevent Mayeux from exercising her constitutional rights. Since maintaining secrecy would clearly be contrary to her own interests, attempts to enforce it merely provided further proof that she was mistaken in the first place when she turned to the church for help.