All of us are mandated reporters when it comes to crimes against children, by Mary Dispenza
Mary Dispenza, pictured speaking in front of St. James Cathedral in Seattle.
(Catalina Gaitán / The Seattle Times, 2024)
Special to The Seattle Times
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an inquiry into a new Washington law, signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson on May 2, that adds clergy to the list of professionals required to report child abuse or neglect to law enforcement. It does not protect what is said in Confession. “It is anti-Catholic,” the administration says.
I say the law is not anti-Catholic. Anti-Catholic behavior would be allowing actions that harm children. Reporting crimes against children is the best of Catholic behavior. The Catholic Church is not being singled out or persecuted — the law includes all faiths and spiritual institutions that argue they do not have a duty to report sexual abuse against children.
The fact that the DOJ is investigating the validity of our constitutional right to put forward a bill and pass it strikes me as ludicrous.
As a survivor of clergy abuse at age 7, who shared her abuse and the perpetrator’s name in the confessional at age 18, I know the fallout from such secrecy. Confession protected my abuser, the Rev. George Neville Rucker, who went on to rape and abuse dozens of girls over the next four decades. The seal of confession should not hold when we are talking about crimes against children. A priest’s calling is to intervene on behalf of the vulnerable, especially children, who are powerless.
It is important to remember that every time sexual assault against a child is confessed and kept secret, a perpetrator is free to abuse that child, and others, again and again. The Los Angeles archdiocese eventually agreed to pay $60 million to 44 of Rucker’s victims. He died in 2014. The Washington bill requires members of the clergy to be mandated reporters, not based on just what they hear or witness outside of the confessional, but inside the confessional. This requirement is not unlike demands already made on members of other professions such as therapists, doctors, teachers and counselors. Really, all of us are mandated reporters when it comes to crimes against children. Clergy privileges do remain when it comes to testifying in court, and clergy cannot be forced to testify against a penitent.
It doesn’t bode well for the Catholic Church to fight this law. The church is not above the law. The seal of confession is a law made by man, not by God or Jesus. It can be changed for the better. Jesus puts it this way: “Let the little children come unto me for such is the kingdom of heaven.” It was an invitation to children to feel safe and protected — that’s the heart of Senate Bill 5375. Why would anyone want to fight this bill?
If it were in place years ago and adhered to by bishops and priests, the epidemic of child sexual abuse by clergy throughout the United States could have been prevented. Survivors like me might have been spared a lot of pain and loss. Now we have an opportunity to be a better church and to do the right thing for children instead of the rite that is part of church tradition.
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Mary Dispenza: is a former Catholic nun, educator and National Distinguished Principal. She is the Northwest regional director for Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.