Confraternity of Catholic Clergy defends inviolable seal of confession

Confessional. / Credit: AS photo studio/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jul 1, 2025 / 13:17 pm (CNA).

The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, representing over 500 Roman Catholic priests and deacons from the U.S., Australia, and the United Kingdom, has issued a statement defending the inviolability of the seal of confession.

The statement was released on June 27, the solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The declaration comes in response to civil laws, the most recent one in Washington state, that seek to compel priests to disclose information regarding child abuse learned during the sacrament of reconciliation or face penalties.

According to Washington’s new law, noncompliance could result in up to 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine.

The confraternity’s statement emphasized that the Catholic Church teaches the seal of confession is inviolable with “absolutely no exceptions.” Expounded in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 1467) and the Code of Canon Law (Nos. 983, 1388), this teaching binds priests to maintain absolute confidentiality regarding both the content of confessions and the identity of penitents. Violation of confidentiality incurs automatic excommunication, reversible only by the pope. 

The confraternity argued that laws like Washington state’s infringe on religious liberty while failing to advance justice, citing the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, the U.K.’s Human Rights Act of 1998, and Australia’s constitution. 

In the statement, the group highlighted the Church’s commitment to child protection through criminal investigation and adjudication, which “can be lawfully and morally done without violating religious liberty.”

Notably, the statement’s authors also pointed out the absurdity of demanding that priests identify anonymous penitents. It also emphasized the injustice of laws like Washington state’s, which exempts other professionals, such as doctors and therapists, from the mandatory disclosure requirement. 

After the passage of Washington’s Senate Bill 5375, signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson on May 3 and effective July 27, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) responded swiftly. 

Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, sent a letter to Ferguson, a Catholic, just days after Ferguson signed the bill, announcing an investigation into the law and describing it as a “legislative attack on the Catholic Church and its sacrament of confession, a religious practice ordained by the Catholic Church dating back to the Church’s origins.”

The DOJ then filed a lawsuit against Washington on June 23, asserting that the law violates the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion. “The seal of confidentiality is ... the lifeblood of confession,” the DOJ stated in its brief. “Without it, the free exercise of the Catholic religion ... cannot take place.” 

Washington’s Catholic bishops, including Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne and Spokane Bishop Thomas Daly, filed a federal lawsuit on May 29 challenging the law on First Amendment and equal protection grounds.

The lawsuit highlighted the Church’s robust child protection policies, which the bishops said exceeds state requirements. “The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle and the dioceses of Yakima and Spokane have each adopted and implemented ... policies that go further in the protection of children than the current requirements of Washington law,” the lawsuit stated.

Daly vowed to the Catholic faithful that clergy would face imprisonment rather than break the seal of confession. “I want to assure you that your shepherds, bishops, and priests are committed to keeping the seal of confession — even to the point of going to jail,” he said. Etienne echoed this, referencing Acts 5:29: “We must obey God rather than men.”

Orthodox churches have joined the legal battle, filing their own lawsuit on June 16, asserting that their priests, like Catholic clergy, have a “strict religious duty” to maintain the confidentiality of the confessional, with violations constituting a “canonical crime and a grave sin.”

The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy was founded in 1975 to foster ongoing formation for clergy per Vatican II’s directives.