Effort to Eliminate Clergy-Penitent Privilege Dies Amid Anti-Catholic Fears [Arizona]

AZ Mirror ^ | 3/24/21 | Jerod MacDonald-Evoy

[marshmallow]

An effort to eliminate clergy privilege and force religious leaders to report child abuse to legal authorities was unable to get enough votes to make it out of committee Tuesday after days of backroom drama.

Currently, only Guam, New Hampshire and West Virginia consider clergy mandated reporters and clergy-penitent privilege is waived in cases of suspected child abuse or neglect in those states.

In Arizona (and everywhere else), clergy are not mandated reporters and suspected child abuse or neglect isn’t exempted from that, even if it is ongoing. And religious leaders cannot be forced to testify in court about abuse a parishoner confessed to committing.

The effort has been spearheaded by Sen. Victoria Steele, D-Tucson, who introduced Senate Bill 1008 earlier this year to add clergy to the list of mandated reporters. Her proposal never was considered.

This week, Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Glendale, introduced a strike-everything amendment to House Bill 2494 that mirrored the language of Steele’s bill and put it on his Senate Education Committee agenda Tuesday. That’s when things got complicated, Steele said.

Steele said lobbyists began coming to her and Boyer saying that Republicans on the committee were planning to “boycott” the committee if the bill remained on the agenda.

“I was really surprised at the level of pushback that we were both getting on this bill,” Steele said, adding that the intentions of her Republican colleagues were so unclear that it got “to the point when they called me up (to testify) I was looking around wondering, ‘Are they going to walk out?’”

No one ended up walking out, and the entire committee stayed to consider the bill, which failed on a 4-4 vote.

A difficult discussion

Steele, a survivor of sexual abuse herself, spoke to the committee about the importance of..............

[PAR35]

>>>”only Guam, New Hampshire and West Virginia consider clergy mandated reporters and clergy-penitent privilege is waived in cases of suspected child abuse or neglect in those states.”

There conclusion is stated too broadly. Priests are mandatory reporters in Louisiana, with only a very narrow exception to protect the confessional.

“Louisiana’s mandated reporters are required by Louisiana Children’s Code Title VI, Article 603 to report suspected child abuse or neglect. Those who are considered mandated reporters are:

...
Members of the clergy
...”
http://www.dcfs.louisiana.gov/news/575

The statutory paragraph dealing with clergy:

“(c) “Member of the clergy” is any priest, rabbi, duly ordained clerical deacon or minister, Christian Science practitioner, or other similarly situated functionary of a religious organization, except that he is not required to report a confidential communication, as defined in Code of Evidence Article 511 , from a person to a member of the clergy who, in the course of the discipline or practice of that church, denomination, or organization, is authorized or accustomed to hearing confidential communications, and under the discipline or tenets of the church, denomination, or organization has a duty to keep such communications confidential. In that instance, he shall encourage that person to report the allegations to the appropriate authorities in accordance with Article 610.”

https://codes.findlaw.com/la/childrens-code/la-ch-code-tit-vi-art-603.html

And Texas appears to require anyone to report
https://codes.findlaw.com/tx/family-code/fam-sect-261-101.html

Clergy (and anyone else) should consult a qualified attorney in their jurisdiction as to the requirements of law and not just rely on the statutes, however, as judges may have modified the law.

[arthurus]

Such a law will have no results as far as discovering and prosecuting child abuse. It’s only aim is to eliminate Confession in the Catholic Church. No rational person can actually believe that people are going to confess such things to a priest with such laws in place.