Arizona bill would force clergy to violate seal of confession

(The Center Square) – A new Arizona bill seeks to force priests and pastors to break their seal of confession if they learn about a case of child abuse.State House Minority Whip Stacey Travers, D-Gilbert, pre-filed House Bill 2039 last month. The new legislative session starts Monday.
Under the legislation, priests and pastors would be forced to report child abuse if they have a reasonable suspicion “to believe that the abuse is ongoing, will continue or may be a threat to other minors.”
HB 2039 would also require priests or pastors to testify about confessions in court about child abuse cases.
If clergy fails to report an incident of child abuse heard in confession, they could be charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor, which could land them in jail for up to six months.
Priests and pastors could also be charged with a Class 6 felony if they failed to report a reportable offense. If convicted, they could face up to two years in prison.
Travers told The Center Square she introduced this bill to “create some guardrails and protections for children that had been associated with any clergy.”
“There needs to be something to protect children – if you know who the abuser is and you understand there to be multiple instances of that abuse,” she said. “In my mind, the welfare of the child should always take precedence.”
According to a current Arizona law, priests and pastors are mandatory reporters of child abuse if they learn about it outside of the confessional setting.
Arizona Catholic leaders oppose the bill, Travers said.
The legislator said she thinks many of these “religious institutions are more concerned about their liability than they are about the faithfulness of the search for absolution.”
She accused the Catholic Church of trying to hide “behind the sanctity of the confessional.”
According to Catholic Canon Law, priests are not allowed to disclose anything they hear in confessions. If they do, they can be excommunicated.
The Center Square contacted the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for comment, but did not receive a response before press time.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson told The Center Square that it was unable to comment because it is in a “transition” stage with a new bishop.
Besides Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, certain Protestant churches and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also recognize some type of seal of confession.
Regarding concerns about protecting religious freedoms, Travers said nothing should hinder protections of children.
Even though she introduced the bill, Travers told The Center Square that she doesn’t think it will be heard by the Legislature. She said she has introduced the bill previously, but didn’t get a hearing.
Travers said this bill was first introduced in 2019 by former state Sen. Victoria Steele, D-Tucson.
Like Travers, Jeanne Casteen, the executive director of Secular AZ, a nonprofit that advocates for the separation of church and state, told The Center Square she didn’t think this bill would get a hearing.
Casteen said fewer than 1% of bills proposed by Democrats are heard in the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature.
The executive director said she did not perceive why the sacrament of confession needs to be protected at the expense of children. “I don’t understand why that sacrament is more important than [the] protection of children.”
Dianne Post, Secular AZ’s legal director, said the nonprofit supports the bill and believes it is not unconstitutional.
Post, a lawyer, said other professions, such as attorneys and psychologists, have confidentiality rules like those of priests and pastors, but there is a difference between them.
Lawyers have to report someone who is “going to do a future crime,” and psychologists need to report someone if there’s “reasonable suspicion” a person “is going to commit a crime in the future and harm someone else,” Post noted.
She told The Center Square the same rules should apply to religions.
In the past, other states have attempted to break the seal of confession. Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, who is Catholic, signed a bill into law in May 2025 that would force priests and pastors to break the seal of confession to report child abuse.
Catholic leaders in Washington state sued a month later over the law after Ferguson signed Senate Bill 5375. The Department of Justice also intervened in the lawsuit.
In July, a federal judge ultimately blocked this new law from taking effect. Attorney General Nick Brown, three months later, came to an agreement with the Catholic Church in Washington state to protect the seal of confession.

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