Child Abuse

Key point 4-08. Every state has a child abuse reporting law that requires persons designated as mandatory reporters to report known or reasonably suspected incidents of child abuse. Ministers are mandatory reporters in many states. Some states exempt ministers from reporting child abuse if they learned of the abuse in the course of a conversation protected by the clergy-penitent privilege. Ministers may face criminal and civil liability for failing to report child abuse.

A Tennessee court ruled that a church was not liable for a former minister's acts of child molestation as a result of its failure to report the incidents to the authorities as soon as it learned of them.

Edward became a Catholic priest in 1970. In 1986, a parent reported to the bishop of the diocese that Edward had molested her son when he was a minor. Edward admitted to the molestation when confronted by the bishop, and ...