SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle Times [Seattle WA]
May 30, 2025
By Shauna Sowersby
Washington’s Catholic leaders sued state leaders and county prosecutors Thursday, alleging that a controversial new law requiring priests to break the confessional seal to report suspected child abuse is “a brazen act of religious discrimination.”
The new law adds clergy to a list of other professions, such as health care workers and school personnel, who are mandatory reporters of abuse. But the church’s lawsuit pushes back on a provision of the law that does not allow carve-outs for things said during confession, and exposes priests to potential arrest.
That decision by lawmakers violates the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, alleges the lawsuit filed in Tacoma’s federal court by leaders and priests in Washington’s three archdioceses, including Seattle archbishop Paul Etienne. It names Gov. Bob Ferguson, Attorney General Nick Brown and a host of local law enforcement officials, who could be tasked with enforcing the law.
Tensions remain over the balance between what the church says violates the sacramental seal of confession and a duty to report child abuse or neglect. The Catholic church has been wracked by a decades-long clergy abuse scandal that led to generations of trauma and the bankruptcy of the Spokane diocese. The Trump administration’s Department of Justice declared the law “anti-Catholic” and worthy of a federal investigation.
Many other states require clergy to be mandatory reporters, but just a handful, including New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia, require clergy to disclose what was said during confession.
“I’m disappointed my Church is filing a federal lawsuit to protect individuals who abuse kids,” Ferguson said in a statement to The Seattle Times.
Jean Hill, executive director for the Washington State Catholic Conference, the Catholic church’s lobbying arm for the state, said the lawsuit is about protecting the First Amendment rights of the church. Hill said the law directly impacts clergy and specifically targets the sacrament of confession, which is constitutionally protected.
“Confession is about calling people to real moral responsibility, and if you strip that away, you don’t get more justice, you get less honesty,” she said.
Terrence Carroll, a retired King County judge who co-founded Heal Our Church, an alliance of practicing Catholics seeking reforms, said the lawsuit filed Thursday is part of a “broader resistance to transparency” by the church.
“The issue comes down to what’s more important here, transparency on the part of the church and the protection of children, or this small part of the confession?” Carroll said.
Carroll said that while confession is part of religion, the actual protection of children is not that separate from the practice of religion, and he believes the church should be prioritizing the protection of children.
He noted that the Washington state Constitution guarantees religious freedom, “except for licentious behavior,” and said he believed the DOJ’s claims of anti-Catholic bias are “propaganda” that may have encouraged the bishops to file the lawsuit.
The U.S. Constitution also guarantees freedom of religion as long as the practice doesn’t conflict with “public morals.”
Hill added that the church cares about protecting children, but said the law is “about punishing priests for keeping the sacrament of confession holy.”
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, has previously said the bill was crafted after she read a 2022 InvestigateWest article detailing how Washington Jehovah’s Witnesses hid child sexual abuse for decades. Similar versions of the bill had failed in previous legislative sessions and were the subject of heated lobbying by child advocates and the Catholic church during the 2025 session.
Sign up for Evening Brief
Delivered weeknights, this email newsletter gives you a quick recap of the day’s top stories and need-to-know news, as well as intriguing photos and topics to spark conversation as you wind down from your day.Sign up
Plaintiffs in the case, including bishops from the Archdiocese of Seattle, Diocese of Yakima and Diocese of Spokane, want the new law to be declared unconstitutional because it “unlawfully burdens Plaintiffs’ religious liberty rights under the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” according to the lawsuit.
Previously, Ferguson, in his former role as attorney general, opened an investigation into all three of those dioceses to find out if they used charitable funds to cover up allegations of sexual abuse by clergy.
A spokesperson for Attorney General Nick Brown said the office is currently reviewing the lawsuit.
Shauna Sowersby: 206-652-7619 or ssowersby@seattletimes.com. Seattle Times political reporter.