Catholic leaders in the state of Washington have expressed concern over a bill advancing in the state legislature that would require priests to report child abuse or neglect even if they heard about it during a person’s confession.

The bill, in its original form, required clergy members to be mandatory reporters of abuse, but it contained an exemption known as clergy-penitent privilege, protecting what was learned under the seal of confession. This exemption was removed from the amended bill the House passed April 12.

An alert on the website of the Washington Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state’s bishops, urged Catholics to contact their state senators and ask them to reject the amended bill when it returned to them for a vote to “protect the clergy-penitent privilege.”

The site noted that the state’s bishops had supported many aspects of the original bill “including making priests mandatory reporters…