Priests who fail to report abuse learned in confession could face up to 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine. The lawsuit, filed in federal district court, claims the state’s law violates the First and ...

Washington state's government and its Catholic bishops reached an agreement Oct. 10 in a federal lawsuit over the state's mandatory reporter law they said could force priests to violate the seal of ...

The Washington Capitol is pictured in Olympia April 11, 2020. Washington state's Catholic bishops asked the federal court to block a new state law they say forces priests to choose between breaking ...

The state is agreeing to a settlement that keeps in place an injunction protecting priests who learn of child abuse only through the confessional. Washington state Catholic bishops won a reprieve from ...

An Orthodox priest hears confession during a Mass celebrated Oct. 26, 2007, in Bucharest, Romania. In the United States, a group of Orthodox churches filed a federal lawsuit over a new law in ...

The conservative legal group Alliance for Defending Freedom, which filed on the churches’ behalf, argued in a press release that the state is singling out priests by punishing them for respecting the ...