‘Excommunicated': WA Archdiocese pushes back against mandatory reporting law, DOJ investigating
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A new Washington law making all clergy mandatory reporters, signed into law by Gov. Bob Ferguson last week, is facing pushback after the Archdiocese of Seattle released a statement that they would excommunicate any Catholic clergy who follow the new law.
Beginning as Senate Bill 5375, the law requires clergy members to report any child abuse or neglect, even information shared with a priest during confession.
The initial bill was passed through the Senate and House over the last several months and was officially signed into law last Friday. However, in response, Archbishop Paul D. Etienne released a statement from the Archdiocese of Seattle pushing back against the law, which has led to the Washington Department of Justice opening a civil rights investigation into the law's constitutionality.
Multnomah County overpaid more than $78K for recruiting services, report finds
According to the Archdiocese, the new law requires clergy to 'violate the Seal of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, better known as confession.'
In response, Archbishop Etienne cited Acts 5:29, 'We must obey God rather than men,' saying, 'this is our stance now in the face of this new law. Catholic clergy may not violate the seal of confession – or they will be excommunicated from the Church. All Catholics must know and be assured that their confessions remain sacred, secure, confidential and protected by the law of the Church.'
The Archbishop added that the church agrees with protecting children and preventing child abuse, noting the Archdiocese of Seattle already has mandatory reporter policies for priests. However, those rules don't apply to information received during confession.
On Monday, the announced they are investigating the law, which 'appears on its face to violate the First Amendment.'
In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon called the law a violation of the constitutional right of the free exercise of religion. He also added the law 'singles out' clergy as the only people who can't rely on legal privileges as a defense of mandatory reporting.
'SB 5375 demands that Catholic Priests violate their deeply held faith in order to obey the law, a violation of the Constitution and a breach of the free exercise of religion cannot stand under our Constitutional system of government,' said Dhillon. 'Worse, the law appears to single out clergy as not entitled to assert applicable privileges, as compared to other reporting professionals. We take this matter very seriously and look forward to Washington State's cooperation with our investigation.'
Portland archbishop 'stunned' at unprecedented selection of new pope from U.S.
The Archdiocese of Seattle cited the text of the First Amendment in their rebuke, specifically where it reads, 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'
Furthermore, fearing further incursion into their constitutional rights, they asked the question: With this new law, where is the line drawn between church and state?
'This new law singles out religion and is clearly both government overreach and a double standard,' Archbishop Etienne concluded. 'The line between Church and state has been crossed and needs to be walked back. People of every religion in the State of Washington and beyond should be alarmed by this overreach of our Legislature and Governor.'
Although the bill was signed into law by the governor, the new law is not set to take effect until July 2025.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Catholic bishops try to rally opposition to Trump's immigration agenda
Advertisement The image in Los Angeles and elsewhere of ICE agents seizing people in Costco parking lots and car washes 'rips the illusion that's being portrayed, that this is an effort which is focused on those who have committed significant crimes,' said Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of Washington, in an interview from Rome. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'The realities are becoming more ominous,' he said. 'It is becoming clearer that this is a wholesale, indiscriminate deportation effort aimed at all those who came to the country without papers.' McElroy, who has frequently spoken against Trump's immigration policies, was named the archbishop of Washington as one of Francis' final major actions in the United States, reflecting the Vatican's desire to counter the Trump administration's immigration agenda. Immigration arrests are rising sharply, and ICE has a goal of apprehending 3,000 people a day. Advertisement 'A very large number of Catholic bishops, and religious leaders in general, are outraged by the steps which the administration is taking to expel mostly hardworking, good people from the United States,' McElroy said. Trump campaigned on aggressive immigration tactics, and polls before his inauguration captured broad support among Americans for deportations. Since then, Americans have 'mixed to negative views' of the administration's immigration actions, according to an early June survey by the Pew Research Center. The Trump administration has said the aggressive immigration tactics are necessary to protect public safety because some illegal immigrants are violent criminals. Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism six years ago, articulated his personal views in an interview last month, saying that immigration 'at the levels and at the pace that we've seen over the last few years' was destructive to the common good. 'I really do think that social solidarity is destroyed when you have too much migration too quickly,' he added. 'That's not because I hate the migrants or I'm motivated by grievance. That's because I'm trying to preserve something in my own country where we are a unified nation.' It is not clear how much influence the bishops will have on the issue. In Congress, there has been little debate between the two chambers over the immigration portion of the policy bill. The bishops expressing concern stand in opposition to the voices of key Catholics in executive leadership, including Vance. 'We as a church unfortunately don't have the kind of megaphone that the administration does,' said Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas. 'It's a real challenge to reach even Catholics, especially when maybe one out of five who identify as Catholic make it to Mass on Sunday.' Advertisement Leo, an American and Peruvian citizen, has from the beginning of his papacy called for the need to respect the dignity of every person, 'citizens and immigrants alike.' After his election in May, his brother John Prevost said Leo was 'not happy with what's going on with immigration. I know that for a fact.' But so far the new pope has not directly weighed in publicly on Trump's deportation campaign. On Thursday, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, implored Congress to 'make drastic changes' to Trump's domestic policy bill, despite its anti-abortion provisions. He wrote that the bill failed to protect families including 'by promoting an enforcement-only approach to immigration and eroding access to legal protections.' Leading Catholic prelates including McElroy and Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, went even further in an interfaith letter to Senate leadership Thursday night, strongly urging them to vote against the bill entirely. In their letter they claimed that the bill, which calls for billions of dollars to bolster ICE, would spur immigration raids, harm hardworking families and fund a border wall that would heighten peril for migrants. 'Its passage would be a moral failure for American society as a whole,' the letter states. The letter was organized by Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, who attended an ecumenical protest against the bill last week. 'This draconian, heavy-handed, mean-spirited way that the country is dealing with immigrants today, it is not fair, it is not humane, it is not moral,' he said. 'It's something we have to really be earnest about, and do everything we can within the law to make our voices heard.' Advertisement Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Mexico, has long supported immigration reform and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a program that shields from deportation people who were brought into the United States as children and did not have citizenship or legal residency. But as the recent raids were executed in Los Angeles, his criticism of the Trump administration became more direct. 'This is not policy, it is punishment, and it can only result in cruel and arbitrary outcomes,' he wrote in a recent column. In an interview, he pointed to the example of Bishop Michael M. Pham of San Diego, the first bishop named by Leo in the United States. Pham, who fled to America from Vietnam as a child, recently went to a courthouse to support migrants waiting for hearings. 'We may have to do that,' Gomez said. More than a third of the Catholic church in the United States is Hispanic. In recent weeks, priests have increasingly reported that families are not leaving their homes to come to Mass because they are afraid. Still, many Catholics support Trump. The president increased his share of Catholic voters in 2024, receiving the majority of their support unlike in 2020, and his support from Hispanic Catholic voters also grew, to 41% from 31%, according to a new analysis from the Pew Research Center. Progressive and moderate Christians have expressed concern over Trump's immigration plans for years, particularly fearing the consequences of his reelection. At his inaugural prayer service, Episcopal Bishop Mariann E. Budde pleaded with the president to 'have mercy' on vulnerable people, particularly immigrants and children who were afraid. Trump lashed out, and a Republican member of Congress called for her deportation. Advertisement At a private retreat in San Diego this month, bishops discussed the crisis at length over meals. 'No person of goodwill can remain silent,' Broglio, the bishops' conference president, said in an opening reflection that was made public for churches, to reach immigrant families. 'Count on the commitment of all of us to stand with you in this challenging hour.' Bishops still oppose abortion, in alignment with church teaching. But immigration 'has become more and more a serious situation' that must be addressed, said Seitz, who chairs the bishops' committee on migration. In his area, auxiliary bishops and religious sisters in El Paso have been showing up at immigration court to stand alongside migrants who are appearing at required hearings. Some of the migrants have been seized by ICE agents. McElroy and several other top prelates have had private conversations with senior members of the Trump administration on this issue this month. They are also working with their priests to address pastoral needs on the ground. Not all priests are in lockstep about how far to take their response, but McElroy said that significant numbers of them feel they need to take strong action. In East Los Angeles, Father Brendan Busse, pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, rushed to the scene after a call that ICE vehicles had rammed a car, deployed tear gas and hauled out a man, leaving his wife and two babies in the back seat. He said he sensed that some Catholics believe their political allegiance comes before the values of their faith. Advertisement 'My body is tired, my emotions are all over the place,' he said. 'But I have to say, my spirit is strong, I think, in part because there's a kind of moral clarity in moments like this.'
New York Post
9 hours ago
- New York Post
Blast ‘em: Get rid of the blocky brutalist buildings that blight our nation's capital
There's a reason God created dynamite. The brutalist federal buildings that have blighted Washington, DC for decades deserve the same fate as Carthage after the Third Punic War, and the nation's capital is finally beginning to move on from these concrete monstrosities. The Department of Housing and Urban and Development just announced that it is leaving its godawful headquarters in Washington for less hideous space in northern Virginia. Advertisement HUD Secretary Scott Turner has described the structure as 'the ugliest building in DC,' which is a dubious claim only because there are so many other buildings in Washington that compete for that distinction. He's not the first HUD secretary to hate the building. Jack Kemp called it '10 floors of basement.' Meanwhile, the FBI is also departing its HQ, designated by the UK building materials retailer Buildworld as the ugliest building in the United States and the second ugliest in the world. Advertisement The moves are in keeping with the spirit of President Donald Trump's executive order stipulating that federal buildings should 'respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage in order to uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government.' That EO should be considered common sense, but has several trigger words for defenders of the architectural status quo, including 'traditional,' 'classical,' and perhaps foremost of all, 'beautify.' In response, the American Institute of Architects expressed its 'strong concerns that mandating architecture styles stifles innovation and harms local communities.' According to The Nation magazine, Trump's initiative is part of an agenda to 'to make historical architecture on the whole inextricable from Eurocentric white supremacy.' Advertisement In short, it's an unforgivable offense to want a government building to look nice. Brutalism, with its blocky, minimalist structures made of poured concrete, was a creation of a post-war Europe that wanted to embrace the fresh and new and to economize on rebuilding. Although the name 'brutalism' perfectly captures the aesthetic effect, it actually comes from the French for raw concrete, béton brut. To be sure, concrete is extremely important to modern life, but no one has ever said, 'Oh, it's so elegant and uplifting.' Advertisement The brutalist buildings in Washington were largely built between the late 1960s and mid-1970s — an era of grievous architectural mistakes, including cookie-cutter multiple-purpose baseball stadiums and modernist Catholic churches. Get opinions and commentary from our columnists Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters The buildings never had a heyday, but were hated when they were erected and are still hated now. The seedbed of the trend was a Kennedy administration commission that advocated contemporary designs and said — laughably, in retrospect — that federal architecture should 'reflect the dignity, enterprise, vigor and stability of the American national government.' Instead, the brutalist buildings speak of a lumbering bureaucracy with no regard for the sensibilities or priorities of ordinary people. They are about what you'd expect if a DMV were headquartered in a maximum-security prison, or in a massive pillbox. These buildings could easily be used as stage sets for docudramas about East Germany. They are a tribute to soulless monumentality and a gut punch to the human spirit. Advertisement If they don't eventually get a well-deserved appointment with a wrecking ball, they should be donated to North Korea. The original justifications of brutalism no longer apply. The buildings aren't new anymore, and they aren't cheap. They haven't aged well in any sense, not aesthetically or functionally. The FBI building is literally falling apart, and the expense of maintaining the HUD building has become ruinous. Advertisement Defenders of the brutalist buildings say that they are now part of our heritage and should be preserved as such. That's not fair, though, to the people who have to work in them, or who walk or drive by them every day. They are a net subtraction to the DC landscape and to human happiness. If one of them has to be kept for historical reasons, it should be made into a Smithsonian museum devoted to idiotic fads that were indulged much too long. Twitter: @RichLowry
The Hill
10 hours ago
- The Hill
Red states have launched a hostile takeover of public universities
Earlier this month, for the first time in its history, the Florida Board of Governors rejected a university's choice of a college president. Despite unanimous approval by the University of Florida's board of trustees, MAGA activists attacked Santa Ono, a former president of the University of Michigan, for his past support of diversity, equity and inclusion programs; his views on admissions, gender-affirming care and climate change; and his handling of pro-Palestinian protesters and the COVID-19 pandemic. Ono's claim that 'I am here to ensure that DEI never returns to the University of Florida' was too little, too late. Florida is at the extreme edge of an unprecedented red-state campaign to reinforce and sometimes outdo the Trump administration's efforts to remake higher education. But Florida is by no means alone. Since 2023, 135 bills have been introduced in 29 states to eliminate DEI offices, ban mandatory diversity training, forbid the use of diversity statements in hiring and promotion and bar colleges and universities from requiring classes that 'promote concepts such as systemic racism, reparations, and racial or gender diversity.' Twenty-seven of those bills have become law. Educational 'gag orders' restricting instruction about race, gender and sexual orientation have also grown increasingly extreme. Ohio limits discussion of 'controversial beliefs or policies,' including 'climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion,' requires universities to 'ensure the fullest degree of 'intellectual diversity,' and bans or restricts most DEI-related policies and programs. Florida's Stop Woke Act, which sought to regulate how colleges and universities teach 'divisive concepts,' has been blocked by federal courts as a violation of the First Amendment. Nonetheless, Florida's Board of Governors and State Board of Education have eliminated hundreds of general education courses from the state's 40 public institutions to comply with legislation banning instruction based on 'identity politics' or 'theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.' Last week, following criticism of existing accreditation agencies for supporting DEI, the public university systems in Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee decided to establish their own accreditor. Ohio, Utah and Florida mandate civics instruction focused on a conservative vision of Western civilization. Ohio requires students to read at least five essays from 'The Federalist Papers,' Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' and the writings of Adam Smith. Multiple states — including Florida, Arizona, Tennessee, Ohio, Texas and Iowa — have established civics institutes intended to be bastions of conservative thought. At least 11 states have passed laws imposing new levels of post-tenure review or making it easier to dismiss tenured faculty. Indiana, for example, prohibited the award of tenure to faculty 'unlikely to foster a culture of free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity,' and authorized the demotion or termination of faculty who do not, in the board's judgment, help create that culture. In several states, proposals to eliminate tenure have only narrowly failed. The academic tradition of shared governance is also under attack. A bill in Arizona, vetoed by its governor, would have stripped faculty of the ability to approve academic degrees or programs. In a law enacted earlier this week that may serve as a model for other states, Texas reserved to the governing board of each public university — whose members are appointed by the governor — the right 'to overturn any decision made by the institution regarding any changes to the general education curriculum'; 'approve or deny the hiring of an individual for the position of provost or deputy, associate, or assistant provost'; 'collaborate with institutions … to set campus admission standards'; and 'overturn any hiring decision for the position of vice president or dean.' Texas also gave university boards exclusive authority to establish faculty senates or councils; prohibited them from issuing statements not directly related to their educational mandate; and limited them to advisory roles, with the presiding officer appointed by the institution's president. Faculty and staff 'may provide recommendations on academic matters,' so long as 'governing boards and institutional leadership retain clear and ultimate decision-making authority.' In another sign of the hyper-politicization of higher education, red states are increasingly using ideological litmus tests for prospective trustees and presidents. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, transformed New College from, in his words, a center of 'woke indoctrination' into a conservative haven by stacking the board with right-wing partisans and naming a conservative president. These campaigns at the federal and state level to undermine academic freedom, weaken faculty authority and impose conservative values are often compared to McCarthy-era initiatives, but what's happening today is far broader and more damaging. McCarthyites focused almost exclusively on a single issue — the perceived spread of communist influence. Mandates were directed principally at faculty and staff who refused to take loyalty oaths. Professors of economics and political science were pressured to teach the virtues of democracy and the 'free enterprise system.' Even when institutions dragged their feet in complying, neither states nor the federal government imposed anything remotely like the punitive and crippling measures employed against educational institutions today. Nonetheless, the McCarthy era fostered a climate of fear and intellectual conformity in higher education that took years to dissipate. When, if ever, will public and private institutions recover from the ongoing all-out assault on the freedom of teaching and learning that made American higher education the envy of the world? It's anyone's guess. Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University. David Wippman is emeritus president of Hamilton College.
