AZ lawmaker vows to block forcing clergy to report confessed crimes

State Rep. Quang Nguyen, a Prescott Valley Republican, said nothing in state law precludes religious leaders from telling police what they've learned about ongoing situations outside of confessions. In fact, he said, they are required to do that.

But Nguyen said there is no way he will agree to extend that to what is learned in confession, regardless of what they hear.

His views are crucial because he chairs the House Judiciary Committee. He has used that position for years to deny a hearing on legislation proposed by Rep. Stacey Travers, a Phoenix Democrat. She wants to alter the absolute right that members of the clergy have in Arizona law to not tell authorities what they learn from congregants through confession or other "confidential communications."

Travers wants to create an exemption in cases where the person is confessing to ongoing abuse.

Travers said she plans to renew that effort when the Legislature reconvenes in January, particularly in the wake of a new Arizona Supreme Court ruling saying it is up to each religion to decide what is a confession or confidential communication that creates an exception from other laws requiring people to report what they know about child abuse.

That ruling Thursday upheld arguments by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that information its bishops learned in 2011 from a congregant about his ongoing sexual abuse of his 7-year-old daughter could not be shared outside of a particular circle they considered part of its process of confidential communications.

That decision by the church — which the justices unanimously affirmed — allowed Bisbee resident Paul Adams to continue to molest his daughter for seven years after that, court documents show. He also started abusing her infant sister and posted videos of the abuse on the internet.

He was arrested in 2017. But that happened only after Interpol tipped off the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that police in New Zealand had found the videos he posted.

Adams later died by suicide in prison while awaiting trial.

Legislation blocked 4 years in row 

Travers' proposal is the same as when she first introduced it in 2023.

It would leave in place the law that says members of the clergy are not required to tell authorities about what they learned "in the course of the discipline enjoined by the church to which he belongs.''

But it seeks to add language to say that doesn't apply in cases where physical injury, abuse or abandonment "is ongoing or ... may occur in the future.''

It was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee, where Nguyen refused to hear it, not just that year but also in 2024, 2025 and 2026.

"Confession is one of the very important sacraments of the church,'' Nguyen said. "And I will not break that sacrament. I will not be the guy to do that.''

Nguyen said nothing changes that in his mind, even if the person discloses ongoing and future abuse.

It's not just Travers who has tried to get the law changed.

'You can't undo that' 

Former state Sen. Victoria Steele, a Tucson Democrat, introduced legislation three times — in 2021, 2022, and 2023 — to make the same changes. Steele, now a justice of the peace, had no better luck advancing her legislation to the full Senate.

She pointed out it was not just the bishops to whom Adams confessed who knew what he was doing.

During a 2018 hearing when Adams' wife, Leizza, was sentenced for her role in failing to report the abuse, the court heard from John Edwards, a special agent with Homeland Security.

He said that John Herrod, one of the bishops, told him that after learning about Adams' molestation, he sought advice from church headquarters in Salt Lake City.

"The church conveyed that he needs to continue counseling sessions, and that there is no duty to report to authorities due to the clergy-penitent privilege,'' Edwards testified. He said that Kim Mauzy, who succeeded Herrod as bishop in the Bisbee Ward, also knew about the abuse but followed the church directive to not report.

All that resulted in not just continued abuse of one daughter but molestation of the couple's youngest daughter when she was just an infant.

Steele said that is unacceptable.

"As somebody who experienced extreme abuse as a child, that doesn't go away,'' she said. "You can't undo that. No amount of counseling is ever going to fix that or make it go away.''

She said that was a motivation for her effort to force reporting of ongoing abuse, even when the information comes in the context of a religious confession.

"As long as it's not reported, the children are still being abused,'' Steele said. "Other children will be abused as well. And that's exactly what happened here.''

Clergy privilege is 'sacrosanct' 

The roadblock for Steele's legislation was Eddie Farnsworth, then a state senator from Gilbert, who headed the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"We have all kinds of mandatory reporters,'' Farnsworth said, including teachers and coaches. They have no right to refuse to come forward when they learn about abuse of children, regardless of the source. But Farnsworth said the kind of changes sought then by Steele, and now by Travers, are a bad idea.

"The issue of privilege is something that I think has been sacrosanct for a very long time, recognizing that the privilege is something that is necessary for people to engage in their religious beliefs,'' he said. "I tend to believe that if we start doing away with privilege in the confessional, then we've basically destroyed the underlying fabric of what the confessional is about.''

That has real-world implications, Farnsworth said.

"If you believe the bishop is obligated to go to the police, would they come in and confess?'' he asked. "Probably not.''

Put another way, Farnsworth said, fear of involving the police could mean that congregants would stop going to a member of the clergy to confess to something they know is wrong. That, in turn, would mean no help would be offered, whether that's counseling or advising the person to come forward.

"At least with a confessional and having a sacrosanct confessional, people feel like they can go in and try to turn their lives around and change and ask for help,'' he said.

Travers isn't buying it — at least not in the kind of situations where someone has disclosed not just prior events but ongoing abuse.

"There is a special case when you're confessing to somebody in your religious organization and there is a search for absolution and contrition,'' she said. "And somebody should be afforded that.''

But her legislation would address situations where a congregant comes in, confesses to ongoing child abuse — and does so with the assurance that no one will file a report. That is "conditional'' confession, she said.

Travers said the situation is, "I'm going to tell you that 'I'm going to keep doing this to absolve myself so that I can go to heaven. But if I'm doing any jail time? No, buddy, I'm not doing that.'''

Nguyen offers no apology for killing her legislation, saying that, as a Catholic, he will do nothing to undermine the sacrament of confession. He said if Travers finds the issue so important she will have to wait until 2029, when he is no longer a legislator due to term limits, for any chance of a hearing.

Travers envisions a different scenario.

If voters were to oust some incumbent Republicans from the Arizona House in November, Democrats would be in the majority and one of their own would chair the Judiciary Committee.

High court also cited First Amendment

There is one other legal issue.

In reaching its decision last week that the bishops were under no legal obligation to report what Adams told them, the justices cited not just the confession privilege in state law but also the First Amendment, which they said provides religious organizations "an independence from secular control or manipulation.''

"Put simply, the Religion Clauses give religious institutions the power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine,'' wrote Justice John Lopez for the unanimous court.

That could set up a situation where churches could still argue, and courts could rule, that their own requirements of secrecy prevail, even if lawmakers enacted Travers' legislation and repealed the privilege.

Travers, however, said such deference by the court would be inappropriate given that the idea of secret confession didn't exist in the Catholic Church until the 12th century.

"This isn't Divine Law,'' she said. "This didn't come down on a tablet from a mountain.''