TWeaK

Priests are being made into mandatory reporters in Washington state. In Washington state, the mandatory reporting law appears to require reporting of all past events of abuse - it does not make reference to recent acts or imminent risk.

Sec. 2. (1) (a) When [any member of these groups] has reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect, he or she shall report such incident, or cause a report to be made, to the proper law enforcement agency or to the department

https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=5375&Year=2025

You've touched on a key point, I think. Doctors and other professionals have mandatory reporting because a) they are in positions of respect and trust within the community, and b) they are professionals, as defined in law, and have standards to uphold.

Priests definitely meet the definition of a), however b) is a bit of a sticking point: their role isn't defined by law, but by the church. Furthermore, a court can order you to go to therapy sessions, but they can't order you to go to confession - it's completely voluntary. A therapist could tease out previous abuse, but a priest will only hear what the confessor wants to tell them about.

I'm in line with you in thinking that everyone should report abuse, but I think that a priest has more in common with an average person in this regard compared to a person working in a legally protected profession. There would be legal consequences for impersonating a therapist, but not for impersonating a priest.

It almost certainly varies between jurisdictions. However, a few minutes ago I looked it up the proposed law in Washington[^1] for this story, and it does actually require reporting of all past cases of child abuse for all groups listed (therapists and other professionals, and now priests also).

To be clear, it's the time that varies, almost everywhere has laws requiring some level of mandatory reporting. But, for example, the federal definition[^2] does not require reporting of child abuse cases in the distant past (my emphasis):

What Constitutes Child Abuse and Neglect?

At the federal level, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) provides a minimum definition of child abuse and neglect. It is defined as, “any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation…or an act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.”

The key part is that it only covers recent harm and imminent risk. This is the baseline that's pretty much universal, but it seems many, or at least some, states have laws that go further and require all reporting. The Washington state law[^1] is summarised as:

When [any member of these groups] has reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect, he or she shall report such incident, or cause a report to be made, to the proper law enforcement agency or to the department

[^1]: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary/?BillNumber=5375&Year=2025 - direct pdf link: https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/Session%20Laws/Senate/5375.SL.pdf?q=20250510110254 (see Sec. 2. page 6) [^2]: https://govfacts.org/federal/hhs/reporting-suspected-child-abuse-or-neglect-a-guide-for-action/

Well you already pointed at why: because you can be ordered into mental health care. You can't be ordered into confession, it's completely voluntary. Furthermore, priests do not have a legal duty of care; they are not registered professionals with professional standards to follow. Their role is defined by the church, not law and regulation.

In a practical sense, such a law isn't going to work much anyway. It would be almost impossible to prove that a priest had been confessed to, short of someone admitting it directly. So the only way it works is if the child abuser wants to get one over on their priest - giving the child abuser another avenue to hurt someone else.

Solution: wait a few months and release it anonymously, while claiming it was found elsewhere.

If you prevent them from leaving at any point you invalidate the accusation of trespass.

They had no requirement to identify themselves to campus Public Safety Officers. PSO's are not police. Locking them in the building is clearly unlawful detainment, and must invalidate any trespass charge as they were prevented from leaving (to be guilty of trespass you must first be notified and then remain in spite of being allowed to leave). Reasonable force is aboslutely an appropriate response to unlawful detainment.

You can’t accuse someone of trespassing if you prevent them from leaving. No one is required to identify themselves to security.

Trespassing requires you to be notified that you shouldn’t be there. Without notice, there is no trespassing. After giving notice, trespassing only occurs if they remain on the property in spite of being notified they’re not allowed to be there. By preventing them from leaving, you are preventing them from satisfying your requirement for them not to be there, and thus undermining any trespassing charge.

Even if they were trespassing, none of that justifies being assaulted by police officers.

In terms of how a sane and civilized society would handle this, well for starters it wouldn't even get to this point - a sane and civilized society does not support genocide. However their argument is that a sane and civilized society would view the requests as reasonable regardless, they're not saying that such a society would give in to their demands because of the way they were protesting.

Maybe you could try making an intelligent comment yourself, before you criticise others?

Fun fact: trespassing isn't even a crime everywhere, not on its own. Also, trespassing doesn't occur automatically, in a nutshell you have to be notified and then remain on the property in spite of notice - this is why No Trespassing signs are a thing, they serve as notice.

Here, the students had every right to be there so were only trespassing after they were told to leave but remained. You're absolutely right that they should expect to be arrested after this point. However, they should not expect nor do they deserve to be assaulted by police acting unlawfully (yet apparently shielded by the legal system).

Is it a constant problem? How many child molesters are confessing in church? How many Catholics are child molesters?

The Catholic church's history with child abuse is to do with Priests and the church covering for them. This is new spin, suggesting that Catholics as a whole contains a lot of child molesters, but I've not seen any evidence showing that.