OLYMPIA (WA)
Favs.news [Pullman,WA]
October 11, 2025
By Cassy Benefield
The drafters of Washington State’s SB 5375 made history on May 2, when Gov. Bob Ferguson signed it into law, shifting the state from one of most lenient on child abuse reporting to one of the strictest — especially concerning clergy and the Sacrament of Confession.
That history was muted on Oct. 10 when state and county prosecutors agreed to keep “information clergy learn solely through confession or its equivalent in other faiths” under protected speech.”
“Today’s agreement respects the court’s decision in this case and maintains important protections for children,” said Attorney General Nick Brown in a press release. “It keeps crucial portions of Washington’s mandatory reporting law in place, while also preserving the Legislature’s authority to address issues with the law identified by the court.”
The state agreed to include clergy as mandated reporters but carved out an exception preserving the privileged confessional communication, similar to attorney-client privilege. The agreement also leaves room for legislators to refine the language around clergy-penitent exemptions.
Lawsuits cited religious freedom violations
The plaintiffs in Etienne v. Ferguson and Orthodox Church in America v. Ferguson — representing Catholic and Orthodox churches — successfully argued that compelling clergy to report confessional admissions, even regarding child abuse and neglect, violated their religious freedom.
“The First Amendment guarantees that governments cannot single out religious believers for worse treatment,” said Alliance for Defending Freedom Senior Counsel John Bursch, who represents the Orthodox churches, in a press release. “That’s rank religious discrimination. We are pleased the state agreed to swiftly restore the constitutionally protected freedom of churches and priests.”
The decision came almost three months after the Orthodox Church in America received their preliminary injunction from the courts before the law took effect and penalized clergy who kept information discovered in the confessional secret. Their injunction came a week after the Etienne lawsuit won theirs.
The law, as originally passed, could have imposed up to 364 days in jail, a $5,000 fine and placed a potential civil liability upon priests who didn’t report child abuse or neglect heard in confession.
Since then, state officials and plaintiffs have worked behind the scenes to reach a compromise.
“It is a credit to the attorney general of Washington, the governor, and the archbishop and bishops that they were able to come together and find common ground under the First Amendment to protect religious liberty,” said Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, in a press release.
Critics say children left vulnerable
Not everyone agrees. Marino Hardin, a former Jehovah’s Witness and advisor to the bill, was the whistleblower behind the InvestigateWest exposé that revealed the denomination’s decades-long coverup of abuse. He noted that in states lacking the clergy-penitent privilege, Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders report abuse — but not in states with the privilege.
“I find this result incredibly personally disappointing,” Hardin said. “Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have an equivalent to the Sacrament of Confession.”
However, he added, they will claim their internal investigations are equivalent and therefore privileged.
Orthodox churches, like Catholics, have a Seal of Confession. Katherine Archer, therapist in training and co-founder of Prosopon Healing website, which tracks abuse cases in Orthodox churches criticized the decision.
“No one has a right to abuse a child. The context in which child abuse is reported should never matter,” she said. “Holding the rights of someone who abuses a child over and above a child’s right to safety is an unambiguous misuse of religion.”
Melanie Sakoda, president of Coptic Survivor’s board of directors and the co-founder of retired website Pokrov.org — founded in 1999 to track Orthodox clergy abuse that provided the foundation for Prosopon’s abuse reporting database — agreed saying, “Children are best protected when perpetrators are convicted and incarcerated.”
“There have always been ways to protect both the sanctity of confession and the vulnerable,” Sakoda said. “An Orthodox priest can withhold absolution (a formal release from guilt granted by the priest) until a perpetrator turns himself in … Victims … can be instructed to repeat the testimony outside of confession.”
Church leaders suggest internal solutions
The Right Rev. Gretchen Rehberg, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane, echoed that the sacrament of confession doesn’t guarantee that a priest will give the confessor absolution. However, she noted in most instances that if someone is “truly sincere about wanting to confess, they are seeking absolution.” If remorse or sorrow for sin is absent, the priest can act internally — without breaking the seal — to prevent further harm.
This could look like making sure a cleric is not recommended for another position, not allowed to serve in a congregation, or not be alone with the temptation that was the basis of the crime, such as children, she said.
“With respect to the [attorney general’s] decision, I pray that … we will find ways within our own church law to protect the most vulnerable,” Rehberg said.