LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune
By Emily Lane, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on September 04, 2014
The Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a ruling by the state Supreme Court it says threatens the confidentiality of religious confessions.
The Louisiana Supreme Court’s ruling, rendered in May, laid out arguments that priests should be subject to mandatory reporting laws regarding abuse of minors if the person who makes the confession waives confidentiality. Normally, priests are exempt as mandatory reporters in the setting of confessions. The decision by the state’s high court stated confidentially is intended to protect the person who made the confessions, not the person who receives them.
“The Louisiana Supreme Court’s ruling strikes a very hard blow against religious freedom,” said the diocese in a press release sent Thursday (Sept. 4).
The original case involves a minor girl who alleges she confessed during the sacrament of Reconciliation to Baton Rouge priest Father George Bayhi that a fellow church parishioner had molested her.
Rebecca Mayeux, who was a minor at the time of the alleged confessions, said in an interview to WBRZ in July, at age 20, that Bayhi told her to “take care of it.”
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