[Notwithstanding]

1. Your queston brings up a point that is missed in all of this: the pope and the bishop were performing a religious act (isuing a religious decree), and therefore he law of the US cannot in any way control how the Church conducts such an act. That is 1st Amendment 101.

2. Any mandatory reporting law that singles out clergy of any kind will be founf to be unconstitutional as the govt cannot tell a clergyman how to do his job or what his job entails (this is known as excessive entanglement). Priest could come in under some general reproting requirment (such as "all adults", but beyond something very very broad and general, you end up with the govt tellig a celrgyman what his job entails and how to do it.

[Jael]

Your queston brings up a point that is missed in all of this: the pope and the bishop were performing a religious act (isuing a religious decree), and therefore he law of the US cannot in any way control how the Church conducts such an act.

Are you actually claiming that a Roman Catholic decree supercedes the law of the US?