SEX OFFENDERS; RELIGION;

You asked for copies of the latest policies on mandatory sexual abuse reporting from all three Connecticut Catholic dioceses. You also asked if any of them exempts allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by a priest received during a confession.

In the Catholic Church, when a person confesses his sins to a priest, the confessor and the priest are in a priest/penitent relationship. According to the Catholic Church’s canon law, what a person tells a priest in the context of this relationship is strictly confidential.

By Connecticut law, priests have a duty to report information or reasonable suspicion of child sex abuse (CGS §17a-101). There is also, however, an exception if this information or suspicion is obtained in the context of the priest/penitent relationship. This exception protects information obtained in confession as confidential “in any civil or criminal case or proceedings preliminary thereto” (CGS § 52-146b). Reporting such information would probably be considered a “proceeding preliminary thereto. ”

The Bridgeport diocese policy (attached) clearly states that, although clergy members have a mandatory statutory duty to report knowledge or reasonable suspicion of child sexual abuse, this duty is also trumped by the canon law that protects information communicated in a confession. This applies even when the confessor is another “personnel of the Diocese” confessing to a priest. Another personnel presumably includes other priests (see § 6. 3-1, 6. 3-2, and 7. 0).

We are still trying to get copies of the policies from the Hartford and Norwich dioceses. The Norwich diocese has a sexual abuse policy available on its website (see attached). This policy, however, does not address the relationship between a clergy member’s statutory duty to report child sexual abuse and the confidentiality of the priest/penitent relationship.

PM: ts