LOUISIANA
National Review
By The Editors
When in 2008 Father Jeff Bayhi, a priest then at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in Clinton, La., heard the troubling confession of a twelve-year-old parishioner, he likely did not imagine that his sacramental duty would land him in prison. But given a recent ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court, Father Bayhi is in the position of choosing between prison and excommunication.
Per the Supreme Court’s ruling, Bayhi must appear before the 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge, which will determine whether what he heard – a civil action by the girl’s parents contends that it involved allegations of sexual abuse by a 64-year-old parishioner — constituted a “confession” or instead some other non-confidential statement that invoked Bayhi’s duty to report abuse under Louisiana’s Children’s Code. Under the law, members of the clergy are “mandatory reporters” except when they have a duty to keep private “confidential communications” shared “in the course of the discipline or practice of that church” by “the discipline or tenets of the church” (CHC 603.17.c).
If what Bayhi heard was in fact a confession, that provision would seem to exempt him, except that under Louisiana law, priest–penitent privilege attaches to the client, not the priest. If the client chooses to make the contents of a confession public, the priest can be called to confirm or deny the testimony. However, Church teaching makes no provisions for the statutes of Louisiana: “The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason” (Code of Canon Law 983.1). Priests who make known directly or indirectly to a third party the contents of a confession are automatically excommunicated, subject to reversal by the pope alone. The inviolability of sacramental confession has been formally communicated since the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215, though its origins predate that.
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