Children’s advocates say priests get unfair exemption

Stacy J. Willis

Monday, April 1, 2002 | 11 a.m.

Nevada law has a loophole in its mandatory child-abuse reporting laws that favors Catholic priests, child advocates say.

Clergy are mandated by state statute to report suspicions of child abuse, but not if they learned of it in a formal confession.

That law, says Ann Rubin of Clark County Child Protective Services, fails to protect children and gives preference to one religion -- because other faiths don't have formal confession.

"If I'm Jewish and if I were to confess to my rabbi that I've done that, it's not exempted, because in the Jewish faith we don't have a formal confession," Rubin, an assistant manager in the department, said.

Nevada law requires professionals in health care, mental health care, social work, education and law enforcement to report any time they "have reason to believe" child abuse has occurred. If they fail to do so, they can be charged with a misdemeanor.

In cases of one-on-one, psychiatrist-patient confessions, psychiatrists are compelled to tell law authorities if they have a reason to believe child abuse is occurring. The so-called "clergy-penitent" exemption was written into the original law in 1985.

"When it comes to protecting children, there should be no exemptions," said Andrea Vanetti, president of ABC of Nevada, a children's advocacy organization. "Some people probably look at the church as a safehouse, but I don't think that child-abuse perpetrators should be safe anywhere. Who would want that?"

Catholic church officials said that confession is a crucial part of their faith and making priests divulge information gathered in confession would be an infringement of their religious rights.

"It would create for a priest a situation that is impossible," Brother Matthew Cunningham, a Reno Catholic Diocese official, said. "They cannot violate the seal of confession. You would just have to lock up the priest. You cannot repeat the conversation heard in confession even to the person who confessed it. You can repeat it to nobody -- that's the seal."

Dennis Ortwein, a Catholic and former executive director of the Las Vegas chapter of the National Conference for Community and Justice, an interfaith organization, said deciding which is more important -- the need to weed out child molesters versus the need to keep the confession a secret -- is "a tough call."

"But I think that information would have to remain between the priest and the confessor," Ortwein said.

If there were a case, he said, where a perpetrator priest confessed to another in confessional, he would "hope that the priest (hearing the confession) would counsel the confessor to turn himself in or take this to another step. The priest should try to make every effort to stop it" short of telling law enforcement, Ortwein said.

Both Vanetti and Rubin said they favor changing the law to end the confession exemption.

"Would I like to see this law changed? Yes," Rubin said. "Is anyone lobbying to get it changed? Not yet. It doesn't seem like child protection agencies make the laws -- it is the more politically powerful organizations."

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said she is reviewing the law "in light of the national abuse by the Catholic church."

"I would want to get input from clergy, but our primary concern has to be the safety of the children," Leslie said.

The issue arose after a slew of accusations surfaced nationwide alleging priests sexually abused children. Although there is no evidence that the accused priests confessed to others in formal confession, there is a national concern that fellow priests have covered up the misconduct of others.

Some states are drafting new laws in response, and some -- including Texas, Rhode Island and New Hampshire -- have mandated that information about a crime received in confession be reported, regardless of the Catholic belief in the confidentiality of confession.

On the other end of the spectrum, some states do not require that clergy report suspected child abuse at all. The majority of states, like Nevada, mandate clergy reporting but exempt confession.

"Why would you want to attend a church where the minister or priest would be willing to hide that?" Vanetti said. "How would you feel if you knew your minister let someone like that care for your child? I just don't understand that."