Reveal News: "Jehovah’s Witnesses fight law on reporting child sex abuse to police" by Trey Bundy

AndersonsInfo

https://www.revealnews.org/blog/jehovahs-fight-law-requiring-child-sex-abuse-be-reported-to-police/

Jehovah’s Witnesses fight law on reporting child sex abuse to police

Trey Bundy, February 1, 2016

In 2013, 30-something Katheryn Harris Carmean White confessed to elders in her Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation that she had repeatedly had sex with a 14-year-old boy.

The two elders didn’t tell police. They, and the congregation, now face a lawsuit from the Delaware attorney general accusing them of violating the state’s mandated reporting laws. The defendants claim the elders were protected from having to report the abuse by a legal exemption for clergy.

The case highlights the struggle of courts to interpret a convoluted web of clergy reporting laws that stretches across U.S. Elevating the tension is the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses explicitly are instructed not to report child sexual abuse to secular authorities unless required by state law.

Clergy are mandated to report child abuse in 45 states, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But laws in 32 of those states contain some version of a loophole called a clergy-penitent privilege. Those exceptions allow clergy to withhold information from authorities if they receive it from members seeking spiritual advice.

Delaware law requires any individual or organization suspecting child abuse to report it. But then it gets confusing. The law allows an exemption for a priest who learns of abuse during a “sacramental confession,” wording that suggests a privilege specifically for clergy in the Catholic Church.

Darkknight757

Disgusting.

Village Idiot

"Delaware law requires any individual or organization suspecting child abuse to report it. But then it gets confusing. The law allows an exemption for a priest who learns of abuse during a “sacramental confession,” wording that suggests a privilege specifically for clergy in the Catholic Church."

You cannot have denomination specific laws. The elders do have a legal case (by analogy). Not that I agree at all but that's how the law is phrased.

elderINewton

I actually disagree that the elders have a legal case in that they have only been orally implied to have the privilege. The catholic church actually has evidence in paper, so evidence to prove the privilege. All elders have is being told they do, its no different than everyone else is told they are now ministers when they are baptized. So if a 13 yr old gets baptized do they get the same privilege? Its a technicality rather than dealing with the denomination specific laws. Its the witnesses that have to prove that the elders had such privilege, rather than the other way around. Ignorance is not a defense under the eyes of the law.

Will be interesting to watch.

Scully

The "sacramental confession" loophole was found to not apply to JWs. In a Catholic confession scenario, there is the confessor - the priest, and the penitent - the "sinner". It's considered exempt due to the fact that there are no other witnesses to the confession, nobody can corroborate the confession if the accused denies having confessed. In the case of JWs, confessions occur in the presence of at least two senior members of the Congregation™, usually Elders™, and then again in the presence of three Elders™ in the form of a Judicial Committee™. By the very nature of how a confession of wrongdoing happens with the JWs, where more than one witness to the confession is required, the "sacrament" of confession or ecclesiastical privilege cannot be utilized to exempt Elders™ from their duty to report child sexual abuse to the authorities.

Mephis

The judge in this case picked up on the same thing Angus Stewart noted at the Australian Royal Commission. JWs don't have a sacramental confession. If elders are investigating things, that's not confession. If you're excluded from the religion, then you've hardly been absolved of your sins. Wonder how far they'll fight this one. Got to think they'll take it as far as they can because it really knocks holes through their claims for exemption from reporting laws in the US. And in other common law countries too, even those where toleration for their idiocy is subject to judicial discretion.

Scully

And aside from that, those rat bastards have some nerve glomming onto the Catholic Church's schtick, after so vehemently criticizing the Catholic Church's procedures as a product of the whore of Babylon...

MindBlown666

Hello Barbara! I hope you and hubby are doing great! Wow....has it been a while! Stopped in for a visit and saw your post!

Yes, Scully is correct. Clergy-penitent privilege only applies when there's only ONE Clergy present, and ONE confessor present when the confession happens.

loophole called a clergy-penitent privilege.

jhine

I was thinking along the same lines as Scully , how hypocritical . As far as the WT is concerned everything the Catholic church does is wrong , unless it's helpful to them ! .

Jan

konceptual99

This of course also makes a mockery of Jackson's plea to the ARC to take the responsibility off the organisation and enforce mandatory reporting. Where they have it they then argue they have ecclesiastical privilege....

Reveal News: "Jehovah’s Witnesses fight law on reporting child sex abuse to police" by Trey Bundy

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