Clergy Privilege and the Law: A General American Structure, Not a Mormon Invention

Does the Church Protect Abusers? · Part 4 of 5

Part of the series Does the Church Protect Abusers?

When critics describe the Church’s conduct in confession-privilege cases as a “loophole” the Church exploits, they routinely omit three facts: the privilege is general American law predating the Restoration’s arrival in most states; it protects every faith’s clergy equally; and its rationale — that people will not confess and seek help if confession is a police report — has been accepted by legislatures of every political stripe for two centuries.

The legal landscape

A 2022 Associated Press review found the clergy-penitent exemption from mandatory abuse reporting exists in 33 states. Only a handful of states — New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia — have no clergy exception at all. (Sources 1, 2.) Over two decades, lawmakers proposed more than 130 bills touching these reporting laws; efforts to eliminate the privilege failed everywhere, opposed most heavily — per the AP’s own reporting — by the Catholic Church’s lobbying infrastructure, with Latter-day Saint and Jehovah’s Witness involvement in states where their membership is high. In Maryland, the campaign that defeated repeal was led by a Catholic cardinal. (Source 1.)

We concede the lobbying: the Church has worked to preserve the privilege, openly, alongside other faiths. But notice what that means for the critic’s argument. If defending a confession privilege proves an institution protects abusers, the indictment covers Catholicism, most of Protestantism, Judaism, and the American legal tradition itself. The privilege exists because legislatures judged — rightly or wrongly — that sacramental and quasi-sacramental confession collapses entirely if it doubles as state surveillance, and that an abuser who will confess to no one is more dangerous than one who confesses to a clergyman who can urge him toward authorities. That judgment is debatable policy. It is not a Mormon conspiracy.

The rationale, stated fairly

The privilege’s defenders across all faiths argue: (1) confession is the doorway to repentance, and repentance for these crimes includes self-reporting — Church leaders are instructed to press offenders toward exactly that; (2) removing the privilege does not produce reports, it produces silence — the offender simply stops confessing, and the one adult outside the family who might have intervened never learns anything; (3) First Amendment concerns are real, as several faiths excommunicate clergy who break the seal, making repeal a law that forces ministers to choose between prison and their ordination. (Source 3; the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City called mandatory confession-reporting “the untenable choice of breaking the law or being excommunicated.”)

Critics answer that children’s safety outweighs all of it. That is a serious argument, and empirical evidence on whether repeal helps or hurts is thin in both directions. Honest people can land on either side. What no one can honestly claim is that a Latter-day Saint bishop following a statute that binds every priest and rabbi in his state is thereby revealing his church’s secret policy of protecting abusers.

Utah 2024: the Church stands aside for a reporting-protection law

In 2024 the Utah Legislature passed HB432 (Rep. Anthony Loubet, R-Kearns) — unanimously, 64–0 in the House and 26–0 in the Senate. The law gives clergy who learn of ongoing child abuse in confession the explicit right to report it to police, with the same civil and criminal liability protections mandatory reporters receive. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not oppose the bill; the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office testified that without this clear path, abused children would not receive justice. (Sources 3, 4, 5, 6.) A companion effort, Rep. Brian King’s HB131, was explicitly designed to make Latter-day Saint bishops aware that nothing in Utah law forbids them from reporting — a clarification, notably, that King said Latter-day Saint officials engaged with constructively.

Direction of travel matters when assessing intent. An institution whose policy was protecting abusers would fight a law that empowers and shields its own clergy as voluntary reporters. The Church let it pass without objection.

Idaho 2025: capital punishment for child sexual abuse

In March 2025, Idaho — a state whose legislature includes a large Latter-day Saint contingent — passed House Bill 380, creating the crime of aggravated lewd conduct with a child twelve or under, punishable by death or life imprisonment (Idaho Code § 18-1508D), with a 25-year mandatory minimum for aggravated lewd conduct with minors under sixteen. The bill, sponsored by Reps. Bruce Skaug (R-Nampa) and Josh Tanner (R-Eagle), passed the House unanimously and was signed by Gov. Brad Little on March 27, 2025. (Sources 7, 8.)

Two honest caveats. First, the statute is on a collision course with Kennedy v. Louisiana (2008), in which the U.S. Supreme Court barred capital punishment for non-homicide child rape; Idaho’s sponsors passed it partly to invite reconsideration of that precedent. Cite it as evidence of the political culture’s severity toward these crimes, not as settled constitutional law. (Source 9.) Second, legislators’ religious affiliations vary and the bill was not a Church initiative — the fair claim is that the most heavily Latter-day Saint legislature in America outside Utah treats child sexual abuse as a crime meriting the maximum punishment the law allows, which is difficult to reconcile with a culture of protecting its perpetrators.

The synthesis

The legal structures critics call a cover-up apparatus are (a) older than the Church’s presence in most states, (b) shared by every major faith, (c) defended most vigorously by other denominations, and (d) currently being reformed in Utah with the Church’s acquiescence. Meanwhile, the harshest child-abuse statute in the nation was passed nearly unanimously in Latter-day Saint country. Structures have rationales; rationales are evidence of intent; and the intent evidenced here is compliance with — and increasingly, reform of — general law, not concealment.

Next in the series: Comparative Context and the Psychology of Predators

Sources and Verification

Direct sources retrieved and relied on in this article. Readers are encouraged to verify every claim.

  1. Associated Press (Jason Dearen and Michael Rezendes), “Clergy loophole: 33 states exempt clergy from reporting child sex abuse,” Sept. 28, 2022 — the AP investigation finding the clergy-penitent exemption in 33 states, 130+ reform bills over two decades, Catholic-led lobbying to preserve the privilege with Latter-day Saint and Jehovah’s Witness involvement, and the Maryland cardinal. Link
  2. Wagenmaker & Oberly (Wagenmaker Law), “Clergy as Mandated Reporters, Without Exception?” — survey identifying the states with no clergy-penitent exception (New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia). Link
  3. KUER, “Rather than require clergy to report abuse, Utah could open the door to the option,” Jan. 30, 2024 — coverage of Rep. Loubet’s HB432, the Church’s statement that it “will not oppose the bill,” and the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City’s objection to mandatory confession-reporting as an “untenable choice.” Link
  4. Utah Legislature, HB432 (2024 General Session), “Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Amendments” (Rep. Anthony Loubet) — official bill status and text: the reporting-protection statute for clergy. Link
  5. Deseret News, “Utah House Judiciary Committee approves bill that would allow clergy to report child abuse,” Feb. 9, 2024 — committee passage of HB432 and Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office testimony that without a clear path abused children would not receive justice. Link
  6. Deseret News, “Utah House votes for law permitting abuse reporting by clergy,” Feb. 16, 2024 — the 64–0 House passage of HB432 and faith leaders’ non-opposition. Link
  7. Idaho Capital Sun, coverage of House Bill 380, Mar. 17–27, 2025 — the House’s unanimous passage (Reps. Skaug and Tanner) and Gov. Brad Little’s signing of the death-penalty statute for aggravated lewd conduct with a child. Link
  8. Idaho Reports (Idaho Public Television), “House advances bill to make lewd conduct with child 12 or under punishable by death,” Mar. 17, 2025 — House Bill 380 sponsors, provisions, and the 25-year mandatory minimum for minors 13–15. Link
  9. Idaho Legislature, House Bill 380 (2025), enacting Idaho Code § 18-1508D (aggravated lewd conduct with a minor child) — official bill text and status. Link
  10. Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008) — U.S. Supreme Court opinion holding the Eighth Amendment bars capital punishment for non-homicide child rape. Link