My cobloggers have offered excellent commentary about the disturbing news about child abuse coming out of Arizona. Everything from suggestions about how we could better help abuse survivors to systemic changes we can make to reduce the incidence of abuse to discussions of confidential confession itself to how the church could have better drafted its first press release.
All of these discussions are crucial as we attempt to protect our children and limit (or better, eliminate!) abuse. But the church’s most recent press release[fn1] crystalized something in my mind, and suggested two things that the church could do in the short term, as we work toward a long-term without abuse.
It its press release, the church writes that church leaders have three responsibilities when it comes to abused children:
- Assure that child sexual abuse is stopped.
- Help victims receive care, including from professional counselors.
- Comply with whatever reporting is required by law.
The first two points are great; they center the well-being of survivors.
The third, though, stuck out to me: the church’s default is to not report unless and to the extent the law requires. So in Arizona, where the law allows, but does not require, clergy to report, its default is to not report.
It’s important to note that this doesn’t mean that bishops will never report abuse in Arizona. I would be shocked to discover that no bishop had ever. What it does mean, though, is that, in the first instance, whomever decides (presumably the attorney answering the hotline phone) will assume that the appropriate response is not to report. They will only recommend reporting in an exceptional case (because, again, the baseline assumption is not to report).
The church needs to immediately change this baseline assumption. Rather than saying that bishops will comply with whatever reporting is required by law, the church should instruct the hotline that bishops should report unless there is a compelling reason not to.
I assume that this change in framing would not mean bishops always reported; there could be exceptional circumstances where reporting would be the wrong move. But where the presumption is that a bishop will report, getting to that exceptional circumstance would require more work.
Abuse victims and survivors should be the church’s primary concern. But it also has a secondary responsibility to those who it has put in the situation of reporting abuse (including bishops, but, depending on the jurisdiction, also maybe RS and EQ and Primary and YM and YW presidencies): in jurisdictions that don’t allow clergy-penitent privilege, do reporters face any civil liability for reporting?
I keep thinking about researching this, only it’s not my area of law, the research is time-consuming, and I have a full-time job plus a family plus hobbies and other things that take my time.
But you know who would have time to look into it? The church’s attorneys. The church could ask Kirton to research the question. And maybe there’s no jurisdiction in which clergy faces civil liability for reporting. That would be important to know!
If clergy does face civil liability, though, the church should indemnify them for legal costs and liability they face.
Those two small changes would have an outsized effect on how we help children who are abused. It would provide a near-term solution to the problems raised by the AP article while we work to create a world that protects children better. And, in the odd case where abuse was not reported, the church would presumably have a better explanation than the unsatisfying, “The law didn’t require it.”
[fn1] Note that I’m not interested in discussing the tone or content of the press release here; I only bring it up because it gives us some insight into the church’s current thinking about mandated reporters and the clergy-penitent privilege.