Bishop Barron files brief urging court to strike down anti-Catholic Washington state bill
Caroline MolloyFollowing Washington state’s passage of a bill that attempts to force priests to violate the seal of Confession, Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, has urged a federal court to protect religious freedom and strike down the legislation.
Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson signed the bill in early May. It requires Catholic priests to report child abuse if it is disclosed within the Sacrament of Confession. The Catholic Church holds that priests must abide by the seal of Confession, which prohibits them disclosing any information they learn within the sacrament. A priest is automatically excommunicated if he breaks the seal.
Attorneys with Thomas More Society (TMS) filed July 4 an amicus curiae or “friend of the court” brief to the US District Court for the Western District of Washington on behalf of Bishop Barron. In 2019, when he was auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, he advocated against a proposed California bill that would have also forced priests to violate the seal of Confession, according to the brief.
The brief penned by attorneys Peter Breen and Shöen Parnel explains that in the sacrament of Confession, the sinner receives healing and forgiveness from Christ Himself through the ministry of the priest, who is operating in the person of Christ.
“Hence, absolutely nothing ought to stand in the way of a sinner who seeks this font of grace,” it states. “This gives rise to the indispensable importance of the seal: If a penitent is aware the priest might (let alone must) share with others what was given in the most sacred confidence, he or she would be reluctant indeed to ever approach Confession.”
The brief describes Washington SB 5375 as being “manifestly premised on a disrespect for the confessional seal” and therefore in violation of the First Amendment. The brief also argues that the bill directly targets clergy by specifically removing a mandatory reporting exemption for Confession, and the bill‘s “background circumstances confirm its purpose to target the seal of Confession for special disfavor.”
“By intentionally removing an exception for the clergy-penitent privilege contained in prior versions of the bill… the record evinces an anti-religious hostility ‘odious to our Constitution,’” it argues.
On the subject of the legislature’s responsibility to neutrality, the brief argues that the bill’s primary sponsor, Washington state Sen. Noel Frame, has made problematic comments regarding the seal of Confession. According to the brief, Frame previously characterized the seal of Confession as a “coverup” for child neglect and abuse, when she said during a February Senate Floor debate that an exception to the mandatory reporting for priests in Confession would make a “loophole that would allow the coverup of the abuse and neglect of children.”
The brief argues: “The public hostility towards the seal of Confession manifested in these comments is simply inescapable.” In its conclusion, the brief urges the court to grant plaintiffs’ motions for preliminary injunctions.
Bishop Barron said in a July 4 X post regarding the bill that “Catholics should be outraged that the state should seek to limit a penitent’s access to the font of Grace. And in fact, all Americans should stand against this egregious violation of the First Amendment.”
