Associate
This piece was originally published on LinkedIn by Debbie Silberman on June 12, 2025.
In Washington State, a new law just forced a painful question: What matters more, protecting a child or protecting a confession?
Earlier this year, Washington passed Senate Bill 5280. It requires clergy to report suspected child abuse—even if they learn about it in the confessional. In response, the Catholic Church sued, arguing the law violates religious freedom.
The law comes with teeth: up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine for clergy who fail to report. The Church, for its part, threatened to excommunicate any priest who complies.
That leaves priests in an impossible bind: break the law, or betray their faith.
But I’d argue this isn’t just a church-versus-state fight. It’s not just about theology or the First Amendment. It’s about kids. And whether silence should ever be sacred when the cost is continued abuse.
In 2002, the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team exposed the Catholic Church’s systemic cover-up of child abuse. Survivors had been saying it for decades: the Church didn’t fail to see the abuse. It made a conscious decision to shield itself, and the cost was thousands of lives shattered.
The Church maintains that the seal of confession is inviolable. The idea is that confession should be a safe space for spiritual reckoning. If people fear exposure, they might never speak their hardest truths.
But here’s the thing: those confessions don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen in a world where children are raped, then ignored. Where abusers admit what they’ve done, and then walk free because no one is allowed to act.
Washington isn’t alone. Vermont, Delaware, and California are all considering or have passed similar laws. The idea is simple: any adult in a position of trust should have to report abuse. Clergy included.
Critics argue that priests are being singled out. That doctors, therapists, and lawyers still have confidentiality protections. But this misses the point.
The question isn’t whether priests should be held to a higher standard. It’s whether they should be held to any standard at all.
And history shows what happens when they aren’t.
Just ask the survivors of Jerry Sandusky. Or Larry Nassar. Or the thousands of victims of clergy abuse. In every case, the problem wasn’t ignorance. It was silence. Silence from people who knew better.
Some Church leaders argue that if priests are required to report, abusers won’t confess. That’s revealing. Because it means they know these confessions happen, and they want to preserve them, not to protect the victim, but the sanctity of the ritual.
We can’t keep choosing ritual over responsibility.
Some have suggested compromises, like encouraging priests to push abusers to self-report. Or drawing a line between spiritual confession and counseling disclosures. These are imperfect. But they are steps toward accountability.
Many survivors came forward only after years, sometimes decades, of shame, fear, and silence. The institutions that failed them weren’t always malicious. They were often just more loyal to their reputation than to the people they were supposed to protect.
This law matters. Not because it punishes priests, but because it protects kids.
We don’t have to choose between faith and accountability. But if we must choose between the sanctity of a confession and the safety of a child, the answer should be easy.