State supreme court rules in case of two bishops who were silent about three children abused by Mormon parents
Clergy members in Arizona who learn of child abuse in the context of religious confession are not required to report it, the state’s supreme court has said in a ruling that protects what church leaders call the “seal of the confessional”.
The panel’s ruling ends a long-running case in which three children who were sexually abused by their parents sued the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), also known as the Mormon church, and two bishops who became aware of the crimes but remained silent.
The case has parallels in a short-lived 2025 law in Washington state that would have compelled clergy members there to report sexual abuse. That proposal was permanently withdrawn in October after legal action by the Catholic church.
In a statement, the LDS welcomed the unanimous ruling by the state supreme court on Thursday that exempts clergy members as “mandated reporters” if they learned of the abuse of minors in the confession booth or through other “confidential” methods.
This is one of those things we’ve learned to do not out of ideal moral principles, but because the consequences of not doing it are so much worse.
The first beginnings of what would grow into modern concepts of religious liberty in Europe came out of the Thirty Years War. Millions died in the fighting, most civilians. When both sides think God’s on their side, and that giving in will mean eternal damnation? It’s gonna be ugly. Through this and other wars of religion, we learned the hard way to take a “live and let live” attitude with certain religious practices.
Religion makes people do terrible things. When someone truly believes their eternal soul is on the line, there’s very little you can actually do to change their behavior. There is no punishment you can apply to them that is greater than an eternity in literal Hell.
I’m in favor of letting priests keep their confessions secret. First, forcing them to reveal confessions isn’t going to actually help catch any abusers. If you establish that policy, even if you get the priests to go along, all that will happen is that priests will tell people before every confession. “Please note, there are some crimes I’m required by law to report.” In that case, no abuser will confess their crimes to a priest. At least now there is a chance the priest can convince the abuser to seek out redemption and turn themselves in for their crimes. And if someone cares enough about religion that they’re willing to confess molesting a child, they’re probably on the verge of turning themselves in anyway. I would rather the priest be able to hear the confession and tell the molester, “the only way you will not go to hell for this is if you turn yourself in.” That would at least result in a nonzero amount of predators being caught.
But historically, forcing people to violate their deeply held religious beliefs rarely works well. It’s a short hop from “I will die for my religious beliefs,” to “I will kill for my religious beliefs.”
I don’t support forcing priests to reveal any crimes confessed to them. Ultimately it won’t catch many criminals, and it comes with a lot of risks. On the low end you end up risking locking up nonviolent priests for decades for no other crime than sticking to their sacred vows. On the high end you risk religious violence.
It’s not something I support in principle, but merely out of practical reality. I’m agnostic myself. I just think forcing priests to report does more harm than good.
Damn, when I read the post and first comment I was ready to grab the pitch fork… After reading your very well reasoned, logical, argument that deals with the nuance of this situation. I completely agree with you.
Disappointed by how presumptuous and fast-to-anger I was.
Edit: word
It’s a hard thing. Like, from pure moral principles? No. I don’t think priests should get any exceptions. But simply from balancing the positive and negative consequences of forcing them to testify? It’s not worth doing. There’s a lot of religious practices that wouldn’t exist in my ideal world.
For example, in an ideal world, I wouldn’t let parents force their children to attend church. Ideally religion would be something you actively have to seek out, rather than something forcibly imposed on you by your parents.
But I shudder to think at what horrors would be unleashed if you actually tried to ban parents from taking their kids to church. From their perspective, without baptism, their kids would be one fatal accident away from an eternity in Hell. That kind of pressure will motivate people to do unspeakable things. It is terrifying to think of what someone who truly believes, “you are trying to damn my child to Hell,” is capable of.
You just have to do a cost/benefit on it. It is practical to ban certain religious practices. If someone wanted to build a pyramid and start sacrificing people to the Sun god, even willing people, we wouldn’t allow that. But we wouldn’t allow that because:
The consequences of allowing it are extreme. (People are being murdered.)
The consequences of banning it are minor. (Not many people actually want to sacrifice people to the Sun god. There’s few enough of them that they do not present a threat to the rest of society. We can easily arrest the handful of people that engage in human sacrifice without tearing society apart.)