President Donald Trump’s Justice Department announced on Monday that it was taking legal action and filing a lawsuit against a new law in Washington State, claiming that it violates the First Amendment by forcing Catholic priests to break the “confidentiality seal of Confession” by reporting certain confessions to government officials.
In a Monday press release, the Justice Department confirmed that it had filed legal action against Washington state over a new state law, known as Senate Bill 5375. The Justice Department claimed that the state’s new law “violates the free exercise of religion for all Catholics, and requires Catholic priests to violate the confidentiality seal of Confession.”
According to The Post Millennial, Washington’s Senate Bill 5375, which was signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson (D-Wash.), requires Catholic priests to report confessions to government authorities if the confessions involve cases of suspected child neglect or abuse.
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The Justice Department argued on Monday that Senate Bill 5375 forces Catholic priests to “violate their vows to uphold the confidentiality seal that accompanies the sacred rite of Confession, subjecting them to immediate excommunication from the Catholic Church.”
In Monday’s press release, the Justice Department said its lawsuit shows that the Democrat-run state’s new law violates the First Amendment’s Free Exercise of Religion Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by targeting Catholic priests and members of Catholic churches while establishing a double standard of confidentiality for religious and secular institutions.
Harmeet K. Dhillon, assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said, “Laws that explicitly target religious practices such as the Sacrament of Confession in the Catholic Church have no place in our society.”
“Senate Bill 5375 unconstitutionally forces Catholic priests in Washington to choose between their obligations to the Catholic Church and their penitents or face criminal consequences, while treating the priest-penitent privilege differently than other well-settled privileges,” Dhillon added. “The Justice Department will not sit idly by when States mount attacks on the free exercise of religion.”
