In a ruling closely watched by both religious freedom and child protection advocates, the Arizona Supreme Court in July found that church leaders are shielded by the state’s clergy-penitent privilege from reporting child abuse disclosed to them.

The case involves Paul Adams, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer who was arrested in 2017 after he posted videos of himself abusing his children. Adams, once a longtime member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had previously confessed to his bishop and admitted to church leaders that he’d been sexually assaulting his children for years. 

Adams was excommunicated from the church and killed himself while in police custody. Three of his six children filed a lawsuit against the church in 2021, saying it had covered up the abuse and failed to report it to authorities. 

The church, meanwhile, said it wasn’t bound by an Arizona law that requires suspected child abuse to be reported to state authorities because of an exemption for clergy. Under the exemption, clergy must have learned about the abuse through confession or a confidential communication from a penitent.

Siding with the church, the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously found that courts can’t second-guess how a religious institution decides who qualifies as clergy and whether a communication counts as a protected confession according to the institution’s own faith teaching.

“Courts can’t be in a position where they are picking and choosing which religions get religious exemptions and which ones don’t,” says Hiram Sasser, executive general couto nsel for the First Liberty Institute, where his practice focuses on First Amendment and other rights issues related to religious liberty. “At some point, courts have to accept the description of the religious obligation from the church itself.”

The Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling means the case against the church will be dismissed. The court also found that unless there’s evidence of fraud or collusion, the First Amendment bars juries from evaluating if clergy properly applied their own faith’s teaching in choosing not to report. 

Paul Clement, the church’s lawyer, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lynne Cadigan, who represents three of Adams’ children, describes the court’s ruling as a “shocking decision,” adding, “you can’t protect children with this kind of ruling.”

“This ruling will encourage religious cults to come to Arizona as they will be completely immune from any obligation to protect children from sex crimes,” says Cadigan, who has filed a motion for reconsideration with the Arizona Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court ignored existing law and gave the Mormon church complete immunity to conceal sexual rape of children,” she says. “The rationale is that that is the price we pay for religious freedom.”

Cadigan also says that the abuse was known to multiple people within the church for years.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a confession is considered secret “even if announced over the loudspeaker in the stadium,” Cadigan says.

With growing concern about child abuse, states have developed requirements for professionals, including health practitioners and teachers, to make a report to a state agency or a law enforcement entity when they have reasonable cause to believe that a child is experiencing abuse or neglect.

More than half the states include members of the clergy as mandated reporters, but most also recognize a confessional privilege. Arizona has universal mandatory reporting but still recognizes an exemption for clergy when the information is obtained during confession or penitent communication.

Father Bryan Pham is a Gonzaga University School of Law assistant professor. He understands the concern that the court’s ruling will allow “religious bodies” to “hide behind their theologies and religious practices rather than being held accountable when they fail to protect children from harm.”

But it’s also dangerous for a court to tell or mandate how religious institutions should practice their faith, Pham says. 

Paul R. Kiesel, a Beverly Hills, California, lawyer who has represented sexual abuse victims, says that it took decades to break the “culture of silence and deception” that allowed sexual predators to prey upon children.

“A decision like the one the Supreme Court of Arizona reached here threatens to set the community back to the dark ages” when abuse was swept under the rug, Kiesel says.

Christopher C. Lund is a professor specializing in religious liberty and constitutional law at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit. Lund says the ruling is “far-reaching” and “broad” in defining who is considered clergy.

The court seems to be saying that “whenever a religious institution says someone is clergy, that makes them clergy, and it doesn’t matter what their duties are,” Lund says.

Michael Mazza is a canon and civil lawyer who provides legal counsel to bishops, priests, tribunals and religious orders. He also teaches as an adjunct professor of law at Marquette University Law School.

Despite the “horrible human tragedy portrayed,” Mazza says, “a secular court simply does not have the power to violate a fundamental religious right protected by the First Amendment.”

If penitents know that a religious leader is a mandatory reporter, Mazza adds, “they simply will not confess to their actions. 

“This, in turn, might lead to more acts of debauchery, as the sinner will not be able to receive the help that he needs to break out of his destructive cycle of sin,” Mazza says.