A lawsuit by Washington State Catholic bishops says a new law, signed by Gov. Bob Furguson, is a brazen attack on a 2,000-year-old tenant of the Catholic faith – the seal of Confession.

Led by Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne – the former Archbishop of Anchorage – the lawsuit was filed in federal district court on May 29.

The bishops note that Senate Bill 5375, which goes into full force of law on July 27, requires Catholic priests to break the seal of Confession by divulging to government authorities what Catholic parishioners reveal when confessing their sins.

Priests who fail to comply face imprisonment, fines and possible civil liability.

Ostensibly the law was passed to identify and prosecute child sex abuse, but the bishops say it narrowly targets the Catholic faith, while exempting most other groups.

“Senate Bill 5375 targets “clergy” specifically, requiring that they alone report information learned in confidential communications that have for centuries been legally protected from governmental intrusion,” the bishops stated in the lawsuit.

The bishops note that the Catholic Church has implemented extensive measures to “eradicate the societal scourge of child abuse.” They point out that Washington dioceses have policies that “go further in the protection of children than the current requirements of Washington law on reporting child abuse and neglect.”

This includes requiring church personnel – including priests – to report suspected child abuse and neglect to law enforcement.

“The object of this law is clear: subject Roman Catholic clergy to dictates of the state,” the bishops state. “Putting clergy to the choice between temporal criminal punishment and eternal damnation…”

“The sole exception to this self-imposed reporting requirement – based on more than 2,000 years of Church doctrine – is information learned by a priest only in the confessional and thus protected by the sacramental confessional seal,” the lawsuit states. “Without any basis in law or fact, Washington now puts Roman Catholic priests to an impossible choice: violate 2,000 years of Church teaching and incur automatic excommunication or refuse to comply with Washington law and be subject to imprisonment, fine, and civil liability.”

They point out that legislative deliberations about the bill, prior to its passage, make it evident that lawmakers were specifically targeting religion in crafting the legislation. The legislative Committee Reports directly acknowledge that there is a fundamental conflict between the Catholic sacrament of confession, but lawmakers stated that the Church could simply “change [its] policies and practices to adapt to this requirement.”

Additionally, the lawsuit highlights that the new law terminates attorney-client privilege for clergy when the information they learn through otherwise privileged communications concerns child abuse or neglect.

This is being done at the same time Washington expanded exemptions from mandatory reporting requirements for certain non-clergy.

“The object of this law is clear: subject Roman Catholic clergy to dictates of the state,” the bishops state. “Putting clergy to the choice between temporal criminal punishment and eternal damnation, interfering with the internal governance and discipline of the Catholic Church, and targeting religion for the abrogation of all privileges, is a patent violation of both the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and a violation of Article I, Section 11 of the Washington Constitution.”

One section of the lawsuit explains Catholic teaching on the sacrament of Confession.

“As taught by the Roman Catholic Church, dying in a state of mortal sin risks eternal damnation to Hell. But the Catholic Church teaches that, through the sacrament of confession, God “will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” While venial (less serious) sins can be forgiven in various ways, after baptism, individual confession of mortal sins to a priest is “the only ordinary means by which a member of the faithful conscious of grave sin is reconciled with God and the Church.”

The absolution afforded through confession is thus a continuation of Christ’s mission to forgive sins. After conquering death and before ascending into Heaven, Christ handed that mission to His apostles: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. … Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” This grant of power followed Christ giving to Saint Peter and his successors the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, with the power to “bind” and to “loose,” including with respect to sin.

That confession of sins – one of the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church – is protected by the sacramental seal, which “absolutely forbid[s]” a priest from “betray[ing] in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.”

So inviolable is the sacramental seal that “[t]he absolute prohibition imposed by the sacramental seal … prevent[s] the priest from speaking of the content of the confession to the penitent himself, outside of the sacrament.”

That is because the sacramental seal derives from the very nature of the sacrament itself, instituted by God, and divinely revealed to the Church.

The bishops note that any priest who violates the sacramental seal is automatically excommunicated from the church, as their actions “threaten or contradict the Church’s unity and theological teaching.”

Only the pope can lift the excommunication.

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