A key lawmaker says a new court ruling shielding priests and other clergy from having to report confessions of crimes – including ongoing child abuse – isn’t enough to convince him to stop blocking legislation to change the law.
And that has frustrated State Rep. Stacey Travers, D-Ahwatukee, who is fighting for the change.
Rep. Quang Nguyen, R-Prescott Valley, noted state law requires religious leaders to report what they’ve learned about ongoing situations outside of confessions.
But Nguyen said there is no way he will agree to extend that to what is learned in confession, regardless of what they hear.
As House Judiciary Committee chairman, Nguyen has used that position for years to deny a hearing on legislation crafted by Rep. Stacey Travers.
She wants to alter the absolute right that members of the clergy have in Arizona law from telling authorities what they learn from congregants through confession or other “confidential communications.’’
Travers wants an exemption in cases where the person is confessing to ongoing abuse.
Travers said she is looking to renew her effort when the Legislature reconvenes in January, particularly in the wake of a new Arizona Supreme Court ruling saying it is up to each religion to decide what is a confession or confidential communication that creates an exception from other laws that require people to report what they know.
That ruling two weeks ago upheld arguments by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that information its bishops learned in 2011 from a congregant about his ongoing sexual abuse of his 7-year-old daughter had to remain among those whom the church considered part of its process of confidential communications.
And that decision by the church – which the justices unanimously affirmed – allowed Bisbee resident Paul Adams to continue to molest his daughter for seven years after that. He even started abusing her infant sister, posting videos on the Internet.
It stopped when he was arrested in 2017. He later took his life in prison while awaiting trial.
Travers first introduced her amendment in 2023.
It would leave in place the law that says that members of the clergy are not required to tell authorities about what they learned “in the course of the discipline enjoined by the church to which he belongs.’’
But it seeks to add language to say that doesn’t apply in cases where physical injury, abuse or abandonment “is ongoing or … may occur in the future.’’
Nguyen refused to hear it, not just this year but also in 2024, 2025 and 2026.
“Confession is one of the very important sacraments of the church,’’ Nguyen said. “And I will not break that sacrament. I will not be the guy to do that.’’
It’s not just Travers who has tried to get the law changed.
Former state Sen. Victoria Steele introduced legislation three times to make the same changes. And the Tucson Democrat, now a justice of the peace, had no better luck advancing her legislation to the full Senate.
She pointed out it was not just the bishops to whom Adams confessed who knew what he was doing.
During a 2018 hearing when Adams’ wife, Leizza, was sentenced for her role in failing to report the abuse, the court heard from John Edwards, a special agent with Homeland Security.
He said that John Herrod, one of the bishops, told him that after learning about Adams’ molestation, that he sought guidance from church headquarters in Salt Lake.
“The church conveyed that he needs to continue counseling sessions, and that there is no duty to report to authorities due to the clergy-penitent privilege,’’ Edwards testified. He also said that Kim Mauzy, who succeeded Herrod as bishop in the Bisbee Ward, also knew about the abuse but followed church directive to not report.
All that paved the way for not just continued abuse of one daughter but molestation of the couple’s youngest daughter when she was just an infant.
Steele said that is unacceptable.
“As somebody who experienced extreme abuse as a child, that doesn’t go away,’’ she said.
“As long as it’s not reported, the children are still being abused,’’ Steele said.
The roadblock for Steele’s legislation was Eddie Farnsworth, then a state senator from Gilbert, who headed the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Farnsworth said the kind of changes sought then by Steele was a bad idea.
“The issue of privilege is something that I think has been sacrosanct for a very long time, recognizing that the privilege is something that is necessary for people to engage in in their religious beliefs,’’ he said.
“I tend to believe that if we start doing away with privilege in the confessional, then we’ve basically destroyed the underlying fabric of what the confessional is about.’’
“If you believe the bishop is obligated to go to the police, would they come in and confess?’’ he asked. “Probably not.’’
Put another way, Farnsworth said, that fear of involving the police could mean that congregants would stop going to confession and, in turn, no help would be offered – whether that’s counseling or advising the person to come forward.
“At least with a confessional and having a sacrosanct confessional, people feel like they can go in and try to turn their lives around and change and ask for help,’’ he said.
Travers isn’t buying it, at least not in the kind of situations where someone has disclosed not just prior events but ongoing abuse.
“There is a special case when you’re confessing to somebody in your religious organization and there is a search for absolution and contrition,’’ she said. “And somebody should be afforded that.’’
But her legislation would address situations where a congregant comes in, confesses to ongoing child abuse and does so with the assurance that no one will file a report. That, she said, is “conditional’’ confession.
“I’m going to tell you that I’m going to keep doing this to absolve myself so that I can go to heaven,’’ Travers said is the situation. “But if I’m doing any jail time? No, buddy, I’m not doing that.’’
Nguyen offers no apology for killing her legislation, saying that, as a Catholic, he will do nothing to undermine the sacrament of confession. He said if Travers finds the issue so important she will have to wait until 2029, when he is no longer a legislator, for any chance of a hearing.
Travers, for her part, envisions a different scenario.
“How fun would it be if we took the majority this year?’’ she asked, if voters were to oust some incumbent Republicans from the House in November and a Democrat would be chairing the Judiciary Committee.
There is one other legal issue.
In reaching its decision that the bishops were under no legal obligation to report what Adams told them, the justices cited not just the confession privilege in state law but also the First Amendment.
They said that provides religious organizations “an independence from secular control or manipulation.’’
“Put simply, the Religion Clauses give religious institutions the power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine,’’ wrote Justice John Lopez.
And that could set up a situation where churches could still argue –- and courts could rule – that their own requirements of secrecy prevail, even if lawmakers enact Travers’ legislation and repeal the privilege.
Travers, however, said such deference by the court would be inappropriate given that the idea of secret confession didn’t exist in the Catholic Church until the 12th century.
“This isn’t Divine Law,’’ she said. “This didn’t come down on a tablet from a mountain.’’