Protecting Children...

or Protecting Abusers?

Clergy are exempt from reporting child abuse that they are aware of pursuant to A.R.S. § 13-3620(A)(2). Legislators and those protecting children have tried for years to get that changed in the legislature to no effect. Two recent cases have amplified that injustice.

On April 29, 2025, the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One decided Rodriquez-Ramirez v. AZ. Ramirez was a pastor who confessed that he had sexual relations with the co-pastor’s 15-year-old niece. The co-pastor recorded the confession and shared it. Ramirez argued that it could not be used in his criminal trial because of the clergy-penitent privilege under A.R.S. § 13-4062.3 because he was talking to the co-pastor as a penitent. The lower court let the tape in ruling that the co-pastor was not acting in a professional capacity at the time. The appeals court reversed.

The appeals court found that the statement was a confession and that Ramirez had sought help on how to minimize harm to the congregation (apparently not the girl). The question was whether Ramirez believed he was consulting a pastor in his professional capacity. They found he did as he showed concern about the churches future and the co-pastor offered spiritual advice, counsel, and prayer.

On May 5, 2025 the Arizona Court of Appeals Division Two held in Jane Doe et al v. Lenzer Medical Services LLC that Dr. John Herrod did not have to report child abuse under Arizona’s mandatory reporting statute because he got the information as an LDS lay bishop rather than as the family’s family doctor. This case stems from the horrific abuse of several children in Bisbee that went on for at least six years as the LDS bishops did not report. When the father posted videos on the internet and was jailed, he committed suicide. Lynne Cadigan has been seeking justice for those children for a long while.

She argued that the Dr. Herrod had an independent duty to report as a medical doctor outside of his position as a lay bishop. The court held that the doctor didn’t get the information in the course of treating a patient which the father was, but in the course of being a lay bishop so he was exempt. He also treated the children but as the court said, he had no duty to prevent harm to the children. A duty is not the same as a standard of care under medical provisions. The question is not if he knew – he did – but how he knew.

In Washington state, the legislature moved to fix this problem by changing their law to make clergy mandatory reporters. The legislation, SB 5375, was signed into law on May 2, 2025. Washington’s action came after an investigation into the Jehovah’s Witnesses who hid sexual abuse for decades.

In a hysterical response, the federal Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation claiming that it violates the First Amendment of clergy. Catholics are the main group opposing it in spite of the well-known international scandal concerning child abuse by Catholic priests – or perhaps because of it. Governor Ferguson is himself a Catholic but in favor of the bill.

The DOJ claims only the clergy are singled out which is nonsense as teachers, doctors, social workers, therapists, unions etc. all have to report. But Dhillon claims it’s not nice to force priests to violate their deeply held faith that they should not report child abuse.

How is allowing children to be abused a value of any church? The absurdity of this DOJ action illustrates the Christian nationalist takeover of our federal administration, something all of us need to be worried about.