OLYMPIA (WA)
Fāvs News [Pullman WA]
April 12, 2025
By Cassy Benefield
Washington lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that will end clergy-penitent privilege for cases of child abuse, sending the legislation to the governor’s desk after a three-year effort by its sponsor.
The Washington House passed the mandatory clergy reporting bill 64 to 31, with three excused on April 11.
Once signed by the governor, Washington will be removed from the list of five states that do not list clergy as mandated reporters.
Senate Bill 5375 was introduced by Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle — her third attempt to pass the legislation.
At the time of publishing, no statement has been made from her office or the Washington Senate Democrats.
Frame said in a previous press release too many children have been victims of child abuse. This motivated her three years in a row to introduce legislation to help end this abuse.
“The Legislature has a duty to act and end the cycles of abuse that can repeat generation after generation,” Frame said in the Feb. 28 press release, announcing the bill’s passage in the Senate. “When kids ask for help, we need to be sure that they get help. It’s time to pass this bill once and for all.”
This was Mark Crawford’s story. He asked for help from other priests during confession when his parish priest took him on a trip from New Jersey throughout the Northwest for several weeks to sexually and to, less often, physically abuse him.
“I began to go to other priests for confession. My sincere hope was for them to intervene and stop this abuse, which was causing me extreme emotional conflict,” Crawford said in a letter he sent to all Washington Senators asking them to support the passage of SB 5375 without amendments.
As a young teenager, he expected them to tell him it was wrong of the priest to do what he was doing and to stop it.
“That never happened,” Crawford said. “I was told to say a few prayers and to not let this happen again … as if it were my fault.”
The Washington State Catholic Conference, the church’s public policy and advocacy arm in the state, fought against this bill.
Jean Welch Hill, the conference’s executive director, said in a previous FāVS article the “importance of not reporting what is said in the confessional remains Canon law and prohibits a priest from revealing what is said, ‘no exceptions.’” He could lose his priesthood.
She went on to say priests can also encourage the person in the confessional who admits to abusing a child to discuss the matter with them outside the confessional, which would qualify as non-privileged communication. Or, while in the confessional, the priest can encourage them to self-report to law enforcement.
The bill defines “member of the clergy” as broader than a Catholic priest or any pastor or reverend in a Christian denomination. The title includes “ordained minister, priest, rabbi, imam, elder or similarly situated religious or spiritual leader of any church, religious denomination, religious body, spiritual community or sect.”