Since January 2019, Fr. Jim Connell of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has been urging state legislators around the country to repeal clergy-penitent privilege in mandatory reporting laws that exempt Catholic priests from notifying authorities of any sexual abuse they hear about in the confessional.

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki has suspended Connell’s faculties to hear confessions and grant absolution, citing his advocacy “for the removal of the legal protection of the confessional seal, suggesting there are situations where it is permissible to violate it.” Listecki said in a March 22 statement that Connell’s “false assertions” that the seal of confession should not apply in some situations had caused “understandable and widespread unrest” among Catholics.

“Protecting the child is more important than worrying about whether the government is going to tell us how to practice our religion,” Connell, a retired priest and canon lawyer who served as the Milwaukee Archdiocese’s vice chancellor