US bishop: Clergy would go to jail rather than obey law forcing them to break seal of confession

Mar 6, 2023 by Jill

from LifeSite:

While two state legislatures debate bills that would attempt to force priests to break the secrecy of the confessional for cases of child abuse, a Catholic bishop affirmed that priests and bishops would rather suffer imprisonment than comply with such a law.

The state legislatures of Washington and Vermont are discussing bills on mandatory reporting of sexual abuse involving children. The bills would remove the clergy-penitent privilege, by which civil law acknowledges the absolute secrecy of the Catholic sacrament of confession. Bishop Thomas Daly of the Diocese of Spokane, Washington, told the Washington Examiner in an interview this week that if the bill proposed in the state House, HB 1098, were enacted, the Catholic clergy would refuse to comply.

“Priests and bishops will go to jail rather than break the seal of confession,” the bishop declared. “I’m confident that the priests in [the Diocese of Spokane] and my brother bishops would do that, so sacred is that bond.”

Daly affirmed that the seal of confession is non-negotiable for a priest, drawing attention to the fact that most secular institutions recognize the importance of the confessional seal and respect it as something inviolable.

Read here