Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

New WA child abuse-reporting law is not ‘anti-Catholic’

All of us are mandated reporters when it comes to crimes against children, writes the author, Mary Dispenza, pictured speaking in front of St. James Cathedral in Seattle. (Catalina Gaitán / The Seattle Times, 2024) The Seattle Times May 16, 2025 By Mary Dispenza, 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.