Democrats have a thing against the First Amendment, particularly freedom of religion, because for them, the state is the religion.

That's why we saw outrageous acts during the Biden administration, with Joe Biden suing the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for abortions against their faith, Orthodox Jews harassed to get vaccinated for COVID against their faith, and Amish farmers raided for producing raw milk, which is part of their faith of living simply. It also explains why 2024 Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris could blithely tell a television interviewer that she was against conscience exemptions for doctors and nurses in performing abortions, whether it went against their faith or not

So it should come as no surprise that they have come up with this idiocy for Catholics, targeting what is said in the confession as subject to reporting to the 'authorities.'

According to the National Catholic Register:

Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson on Friday signed a controversial state law that requires priests to report child abuse to authorities even if they learn of it during the sacrament of confession.

The measure, introduced in the state legislature earlier this year, adds clergy to the list of mandatory abuse reporters in the state, but doesn't include an exemption for information learned in the confessional.

A 2023 version of the proposal had offered an exemption for abuse allegations learned “solely as a result of a confession.” The latest bill does not contain such a carve-out, and in fact explicitly notes that clergy do not qualify for a “privileged communication” exemption.

Ferguson told reporters that as a Catholic he was “very familiar” with the sacrament of confession. “[I] felt this was important legislation,” he said on Friday.

What goes on there is sacred -- holy, untouchable. It's literally a sacrament. It has been thus for thousands of years. To force a priest to notify authorities of a confession of child abuse, when he may not even know who is confessing is not only probably impossible, but an outrageous violation of religious freedom and the First Amendment. Any priest who does that is automatically excommunicated according to Church law. Priests have died martyrs for refusing to break the seal of confession. And the priests in this state have said they will go to jail over this.

And the premise? Child abuse. Seems that justifies anything against the Catholic Church, (while public school teachers who much more likely to engage in such behavior have their own seal of something other than confession -- they can't be fired). Like Joe Biden, the guv is claiming he's a good Catholic. He doesn't know the first thing about it.

According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops website:

No matter the circumstances, when people confess their sins to a priest, they are coming to Jesus to say, “I am sorry for what I have done.  I want your grace to heal me and change me, so that I can follow you more closely.”  This is a sacred encounter between the penitent and the Lord who offers forgiveness and healing.

But what happens when a priest hearing a confession learns information that would be useful to civil authorities in resolving a crime?

The Code of Canon Law forbids priests from divulging information received in confession.  The penalty for a priest who directly violates the seal of confession is excommunication.

Suppose a thief repented of his sin and confessed his robbery to his priest.  Ought the priest be required to testify in court against the thief?  Indeed, this very situation gave rise to an important religious liberty case in 1813, People v. Philips, during the early days of the American republic.

For most of us, if we had knowledge related to a crime, we would be obligated to share that information with the proper authorities.  If you are called upon to serve as a witness in a trial, you must speak forthrightly about what you know of the crime.  

In New York, Fr. Anthony Kohlmann learned in the confessional the identity of two people who had stolen jewelry.  After the penitents handed the stolen goods over to him, Fr. Kohlmann returned the jewelry to its rightful owner, and the robbery victim offered to withdraw his complaint.  However, the thieves were later apprehended on other evidence, and as part of the trial, Fr. Kohlmann was called as a witness to share how he knew where the jewelry was.  Fr. Kohlmann refused to share this information, because he would not betray his priestly duty to maintain the seal of confession.  While he would gladly testify had he come by the knowledge in some other way, to reveal a penitent’s confession would be to violate his faith.  He asked for an exemption.

He won that case, and over at the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, deputy attorney general Harmeet Dhillon has said she is looking into the matter as a violation of civil rights of freedom of religion.

Here's what typically happens if someone comes looking for forgiveness by confessing to a priest a horrendous crime: The priest tells the person that in order to receive forgiveness, he needs to turn himself into the authorities. I know of one case where that happened in 1984, after a murder in Orinda, California by a high school girl named Bernadette Protti, who confessed to killing her more popular classmate Kirsten Costas with a kitchen knife out of apparent jealousy. I don't see it mentioned in Wikipedia, but I recall reading it in the San Francisco Chronicle around the time she was apprehended.

The act in Washington is an outrageous violation of religious freedom and will serve to turn priests into agents of the state, which sounds a lot like the set-up in China, whose version of the Catholic Church is run by the communist state. During the Soviet era, the Russian Orthodox Church became a corrupted state zombie, too, with KGB agents taking on the role of confessor priests and bishops, the better to extract confessions and surveillance for their state purposes. It was terrible, traumatic, and to this day, much of Russia remains in loathing of all religion as a result.

I suspect this law will not survive judicial appeal by the Church and the DoJ, which can clearly see the violation of the First Amendment and the essential threat to freedom of religion. But this will not stop Democrats from trying to coopt the Church for their own purposes. If they succeed in this, they will move on to confessions of 'political crimes' and probably start bugging confessionals, too. This is an entire area that is off limits to them, except that it isn't. They mean to take over the Church for their own purposes, making church and state inseparable, and heaven help us if they succeed.

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