Jul. 18—A federal judge has blocked a new mandate for members of clergy to report suspected child abuse or neglect from taking effect next week.
The law, adopted during the 2025 legislative session, has sparked a federal lawsuit, an investigation by the Department of Justice over claims of anti-Catholic bias and vows by Catholic leadership in Seattle and Spokane that their congregations would not fully abide by the requirement.
The law was set to take effect on July 27.
“For centuries, Catholic faithful around the world have sought reconciliation with God through the sacrament of confession,” Jean Hill, executive director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, said in a statement Friday. “This ruling protects that sacred space and ensures that Washingtonians of all religious stripes can live out their beliefs in peace.”
A representative for Gov. Bob Ferguson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning.
The ruling by Judge David Estudillo on Friday comes after the Catholic bishops of Washington, including Spokane Bishop Thomas Daly, alleged in a lawsuit that the state “is targeting the Roman Catholic Church in a brazen act of religious discrimination.”
In separate statements after the law was adopted and signed, Daly said, “Shepherds, bishops and priests, are committed to keeping the seal of confession — even to the point of going to jail,” and Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne indicated that those who break the seal of confession face excommunication from the church.
Shortly after the bill was signed into law, Daly, Etienne, and Yakima Bishop Joseph Tyson filed a federal lawsuit against Ferguson, Attorney General Nick Brown and Washington’s 39 county prosecutors, alleging the law was a “brazen act of religious discrimination.”
On Monday, lawyers representing Washington’s Catholic leaders asked Estudillo to block the law from taking effect.
The lawsuit alleges that the mandatory reporting requirement violates the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Washington Constitution.
“Without any basis in law or fact, Washington now puts Roman Catholic priests to an impossible choice: violate 2,000 years of Church teaching and incur automatic excommunication or refuse to comply with Washington law and be subject to imprisonment, fine, and civil liability,” the complaint states.
In his ruling, Estudillo found that the bishops are “likely to succeed on the merits of their argument” that the law violates the First Amendment because “the law eliminates the privilege communication exception as to clergy but maintains it for others and does not establish a general mandatory reporting requirement.”
Under current state law, a variety of professions that frequently interact with children, including police officers, nurses and school personnel, are required to report incidents of suspected abuse within 48 hours, with failure to do so considered a gross misdemeanor.
Failure to comply with the law could result in up to 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Unlike previous versions of the legislation, the bill passed this year does not include an exemption for the communication between clergy and a congregation member known as “penitential” communication, such as in the confession of sins.
“There is no question that SB 5375 burdens Plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion,” Estudillo wrote. “In situations where Plaintiffs hear confessions related to child abuse or neglect, SB 5375 places them in the position of either complying with the requirements of their faith or violating the law.”
In his ruling, Estudillo noted that lawmakers adopted legislation this session that exempted attorneys employed by public or private universities and colleges from mandatory reporting requirements if the information is related to the representation of a client.
“The government interest at issue in both statutes—protecting children from abuse and neglect—is the same,” Estudillo wrote. “Nevertheless, one law eliminates the privilege for clergy while the other expands the privileges available to secular professionals.”
Estudillo added that the requirement for clergy was “neither neutral nor generally applicable because it treats religious activity less favorably than comparable secular activity.”
In their defense of the law, lawyers representing Washington wrote that designating clergy as mandatory reporters “treats them exactly the same as other professions the Legislature has deemed to be uniquely positioned to identify and report suspected child abuse.”
The state also objected to the preliminary injunction, arguing that clergy have shown “no risk of imminent irreparable harm, and the equities tip sharply against them.”
“The public’s interest in preventing child abuse outweighs their hypothetical concern of possible religious conflict,” the response states.
Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, the bill’s sponsor, introduced similar legislation in 2023 and again in 2024. In 2023, a proposal that did not include an exemption for confidential penitential communication was rejected. The version proposed by Frame last year would have established a “duty to warn” for abuse disclosed in penitential communication, though that, too, failed.
In May, the Department of Justice announced an investigation into the legislation, alleging it “appears on its face to violate the First Amendment.” According to the Department of Justice, the investigation is led by the agency’s Civil Rights Division.
Across the country, 30 states have designated clergy as mandatory reporters, while an additional 14 have universal mandatory reporting requirements.
In June, the Orthodox Church of America and a collection of other churches filed a similar federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of Washington, alleging the law “puts priests, and only priests, to a Hobson’s choice: they must either obey Washington law and violate their sacred obligation to maintain the confidentiality of Confession, or else uphold their religious vow and face criminal penalties.”
“Washington has made itself an outlier,” the complaint states. “It is now the only state whose mandatory reporter law explicitly overrides the religious clergy-penitent privilege while leaving the secular attorney-client privilege (and other secular privileges) intact.”
As he signed the bill into law in May, Ferguson said it “protects Washingtonians from abuse and harm.”
A Catholic, Ferguson said he has a “personal perspective on this.”
“But protecting our kids first is the most important thing,” Ferguson said.