Bishops vow defiance, DOJ launches probe over Washington state's new 'anti-Catholic' law



Washington state Gov. Bob Ferguson (D) ratified a bill on Friday requiring priests to break the seal of confession if informed of abuse.

As this law invites the government into the confessional, likely violates the Constitution's Establishment Clause, and puts priests at risk of automatic excommunication, Catholic bishops in Washington state have vowed defiance and the Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation.

Senate Bill 5375, which passed the state Senate in a 28-20 vote and the state House in a 64-31 vote, requires any person operating in an official supervisory capacity with a nonprofit or a for-profit organization — including priests, ordained ministers, and rabbis — who has "reasonable cause to believe that a child has suffered abuse or neglect" to notify law enforcement or the Department of Children, Youth and Families.

Unlike a previous version of the legislation, SB 5375 offers no carve-out for allegations learned as a result of a confession.

The final bill report actually clarifies that the Democratic law mandates no one except for members of the clergy to report abuse when that information is obtained solely as a result of a privileged communication.

'He can make no use of knowledge that confession gives him about penitents' lives.'

By mandating priests to divulge information gleaned in the confessional, the Democratic law puts priests at risk of excommunication.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

Given the delicacy and greatness of this ministry and the respect due to persons, the Church declares that every priest who hears confessions is bound under very severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents have confessed to him. He can make no use of knowledge that confession gives him about penitents' lives. This secret, which admits of no exceptions, is called the "sacramental seal," because what the penitent has made known to the priest remains "sealed" by the sacrament.

The Code of Canon Law cited by the Washington State Catholic Conference in its oppositional statements is similarly clear on the issue: "The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason."

Canon Law notes further that a "confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal incurs a latae sententiae — automatic — excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See."

Democratic state Sen. Noel Frame, a prime sponsor of the bill, did not appear to be concerned about such consequences, stating, "There are some things that it doesn't matter what religion you are in; you never put somebody's conscience over the protection of a child," reported KXLY-TV.

During debate in February, Republican state Sen. Leonard Christian noted that the legislation would force "somebody who's given their entire life — raised their hand, made an oath with God almighty — to choose between God's law and man's law."

'After the apostles were arrested and thrown into jail for preaching the name of Jesus Christ, St. Peter responds to the Sanhedrin: "We must obey God rather than men."'

Catholic bishops in the state have made clear which law takes precedence.

The Most Rev. Thomas Daly, Bishop of Spokane, reassured Catholics in his diocese Friday that their priests and bishop "are committed to keeping the seal of the confession — even to the point of going to jail.

"For those legislators who question our commitment to the safety of your children, simply speak with any mom who volunteers with a parish youth group, any Catholic school teacher, any dad who coaches a parochial school basketball team or any priest, deacon, or seminarian, and you will learn firsthand about our solid protocols and procedures," said Bishop Daly. "The Diocese of Spokane maintains an entire department at the Chancery, the Office of Child and Youth protection, staffed by professional laypeople. We have a zero-tolerance policy regarding child sexual abuse."

Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne underscored in a statement Sunday that while the Church "agrees with the goal of protecting children and preventing child abuse" and already has policies requiring priests to be mandatory reporters, the seal of confession will not be broken.

"This weekend at Mass, the first reading was from the Acts of the Apostles. After the apostles were arrested and thrown into jail for preaching the name of Jesus Christ, St. Peter responds to the Sanhedrin: 'We must obey God rather than men' (Acts 5:29)," wrote the archbishop. "This is our stance now in the face of this new law. Catholic clergy may not violate the seal of confession — or they will be excommunicated from the Church."

'The law appears to single out clergy as not entitled to assert applicable privileges.'

"All Catholics must know and be assured that their confessions remain sacred, secure, confidential, and protected by the law of the Church," added Archbishop Etienne.

The archbishop also raised the question of why privileged communications between priest and penitent were singled out but not the communications between attorney and client, doctor and patient, and spouses.

"This new law singles out religion and is clearly both government overreach and a double standard," wrote Archbishop Etienne.

The Justice Department announced a First Amendment investigation into the Washington state law on Monday, calling SB 5375 an "anti-Catholic law."

Like Archbishop Etienne, the DOJ also expressed interest in why Washington Democrats singled out members of the clergy as the only "supervisors" who may not rely on applicable legal privileges as a defense to mandatory reporting.

"SB 5375 demands that Catholic priests violate their deeply held faith in order to obey the law, a violation of the Constitution and a breach of the free exercise of religion cannot [sic] stand under our constitutional system of government," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

"Worse, the law appears to single out clergy as not entitled to assert applicable privileges, as compared to other reporting professionals," continued Dhillon. "We take this matter very seriously and look forward to Washington State's cooperation with our investigation."

Gov. Ferguson, who identifies as a Catholic, said in a statement obtained by the Seattle Times, "We look forward to protecting Washington kids from sexual abuse in the face of this 'investigation' from the Trump administration."

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Congress quietly pulls bill criminalizing anti-Israeli boycotts following GOP backlash



The House pulled a controversial bill that would criminalize anti-Israel boycotts from the votes schedule this week after several Republicans publicly criticized the bill for violating the First Amendment.

The bill, known as the IGO Anti-Boycott Act, would penalize Americans who participate in anti-Israeli boycotts if they are "imposed by" international organizations or governments like the United Nations or the European Union. The resolution, which was spearheaded by Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, would fine Americans who violated the bill up to $1 million and could impose prison time of up to 20 years.

'It was a ridiculous bill that our leadership should have never scheduled for a vote.'

The bill was originally set for a vote on Monday but was quietly removed from the votes schedule after Republican lawmakers and conservative voices spoke out against it, arguing that it was a slippery slope.

"H.R. 867, up for a vote tomorrow, aims to curb antisemitism but threatens First Amendment rights," Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida said Sunday before the bill was removed from the schedule. "Americans have the right to boycott, and penalizing this risks free speech. I reject and vehemently condemn antisemitism but I cannot violate the first amendment."

"It is my job to defend American’s rights to buy or boycott whomever they choose without the government harshly fining them or imprisoning them," Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said Sunday. "But what I don’t understand is why we are voting on a bill on behalf of other countries and not the President’s executive orders that are FOR OUR COUNTRY???"

Prominent conservatives like Charlie Kirk also came out against the bill, arguing that the legislation would foster more prejudice rather than reduce it.

"Bills like this only create more antisemitism, and play into growing narratives that Israel is running the US government," Kirk said in a post Sunday. "In America you are allowed to hold differing views. You are allowed to disagree and protest. We've allowed far too many people who hate America move here from abroad, but the right to speak freely is the birthright of all Americans. This bill should not pass. Any Republican that votes for this bill will expose themselves. We will be watching very closely."

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who has previously criticized and voted against similar resolutions, cheered the decision to remove the bill from the schedule Sunday night.

"Thank you for your vocal opposition on this platform," Massie said. "It was a ridiculous bill that our leadership should have never scheduled for a vote."

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Florida is now ground zero in the national fight for educational freedom



Education doesn’t begin in the classroom. It starts at the kitchen table — often after a family prayer — where parents pass down common sense and values through everyday conversations.

That’s why the stakes were so high last week when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor. At the heart of the case lies a core American principle that conservatives defend: the God-given right of parents to raise and educate their children free from government interference.

A parent’s most important job is raising his child. We cannot outsource this responsibility to institutions that reject our values.

During the hearing, even Justice Elena Kagan — no ally of conservatives — acknowledged that “some nonreligious parents might not be ‘thrilled’” with the storybooks Montgomery County selected for young children. The books? “Pride Puppy!” “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” and “Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope.” These titles feature references to underwear, leather, lip rings, and drag performers.

We’ve come a long way from “Little House on the Prairie.”

This raises a fundamental question: Why is parental authority suddenly up for debate?

Regardless of how the court rules, don’t expect this to end. For the left, the fight isn’t just political — it’s spiritual. As Rod Dreher writes in “Live Not by Lies”:

Christians today must understand that, fundamentally, they aren’t resisting a different politics but rather what is effectively a rival religion.

While the rest of the country argues, Florida leads.

As a father of three school-age children, I see daily how policy decisions affect our kids’ future. In Florida, parental rights don’t just get lip service — they shape law. They stand at the center of our education policy.

Thanks to the leadership of Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr., Florida ranks number one in the nation for education freedom. Our state approaches education with an unapologetic commitment to faith, family, and freedom.

The 2024-2025 “Focus on Florida’s Future” plan reflects that commitment. It raises teacher salaries, strengthens school safety, and invests a record $28.4 billion in K-12 education — all while expanding school choice.

Over the past year, Florida delivered:

  • House Bill 931, which established a statewide school chaplain program, ensuring students can access faith-based counseling with parental consent.
  • House Bill 1291, which strengthened teacher training programs by banning political indoctrination and reaffirming the goal of teaching facts, not ideology.
  • An expanded Family Empowerment Scholarship Program, which gives more military families and students with disabilities the freedom to choose the education that fits them best.

Florida also continued its leadership in protecting Jewish schools, allocating $20 million for security upgrades, $3.5 million for transportation, and $7 million for Holocaust education centers.

Florida stands as a model. But the rest of the country must join the fight.

As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned in “Battle for the American Mind,” the left has waged a strategic campaign to capture public schools. He explains how classical Christian education once taught wisdom through history and the great books. Today, that has been replaced by activist ideology. Physical education gave way to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Geology became gender theory. Civics became critical race theory.

This fight extends far beyond education. At stake is the authority of the American family.

Will we allow the state to replace parents as the primary moral guide for children?

If the Supreme Court upholds the current approach, no limiting principle will remain to stop the erosion of parental rights. We would do well to remember the court’s own words in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925): “The child is not the mere creature of the state.”

A parent’s most important job is raising his child. We cannot hand off that duty to institutions hostile to our beliefs. Parental rights are not negotiable — they’re foundational. They serve as the first line of defense for a free and morally grounded society.

It’s time to bring education back home. Back to the kitchen table. Back to prayer. Back to the people who love children most — their parents.

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This red-state attorney general has declared war on the First Amendment



We thought the Supreme Court had finally purged anti-religious discrimination from Establishment Clause jurisprudence. After years of confusion — conflating the ban on state-sponsored religion with an invented mandate to scrub faith from public life — the Court, through a series of rulings on religious schools and public funding, had restored sanity. It returned the law to its pre-Warren era understanding: Equal treatment of religion does not violate the Constitution.

Yet, here we are again.

Those who claim that equal treatment of religion violates the Establishment Clause are the ones betraying its meaning.

In a move that stunned observers, Oklahoma’s own Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond and the state supreme court now argue that states cannot recognize religious charter schools.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond. The case centers on St. Isidore, a Catholic online school seeking to join Oklahoma’s charter school system. Drummond contends the school’s religious affiliation disqualifies it. He sued the state charter board — a move usually made by the ACLU or militant secularist groups.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with him. The court claimed that granting charter status to a Catholic school would violate the First Amendment by effectively establishing Catholicism as a state religion. Justices labeled charter schools “state actors” and argued that any religious affiliation disqualifies a school from public recognition.

This logic turns the First Amendment on its head. The Constitution does not require hostility toward religion. It requires neutrality. Denying a religious school access to a public benefit — simply because it is religious — violates precedent.

Oklahoma’s Charter Schools Act permits any “private college or university, private person, or private organization” to apply for state funding to open a charter school. Excluding religious applicants contradicts not one but three major Supreme Court rulings.

In Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia Inc v. Comer (2017), the court ruled that excluding a religious school from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified “solely because it is a church” is “odious to our Constitution.” That case involved a grant for playground resurfacing. If states can’t deny rubber mulch, they can’t deny full charter status.

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), a 5-4 majority held that state constitutions barring aid to religious institutions over secular ones violates the Free Exercise Clause. Public benefits, the Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized, cannot be denied “solely because of the religious character of the schools.”

Then came Carson v. Makin (2022), where Maine tried to distinguish between religious status and religious use, barring religious schools from voucher funds. The court rejected the distinction. Roberts, writing again for the majority, ruled that the program “operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise.” He warned that attempts to judge how a religious school carries out its mission invite unconstitutional state entanglement.

So how, after such ironclad precedent, do we find a Republican state attorney general and a court in a state Trump carried in every county ruling that religious schools can’t even apply for public funding?

The answer lies in years of lukewarm Republican control. These are Republicans in name only, who blocked judicial reform and refused to challenge activist courts. Now, Drummond wants a promotion. He’s announced his run for governor after already overruling the state education superintendent’s decision to ban pornography in public libraries.

This case reveals a larger pattern. Courts act as a one-way ratchet. Even after strong Supreme Court rulings, liberal lower courts defy precedent. They delay, split hairs, and distinguish without merit. The high court may reverse Oklahoma, but its rulings rarely secure lasting victories.

And the irony? Those who claim that equal treatment of religion violates the Establishment Clause are the ones betraying its meaning.

During the House debate on the First Amendment in 1789, James Madison explained: “Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience.”

That principle — freedom of conscience without coercion — shaped the American experiment. Far from excluding religion, the founders assumed its influence. As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.” He added that politics and religion formed an “alliance which has never been dissolved.”

It’s time for the Supreme Court to reaffirm that alliance — clearly, decisively, and without leaving room for lower courts to ignore. And in Oklahoma, it’s time to elect Republicans who still believe the Bible belongs in the Bible Belt.

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Erase the Bible, lose the West — and that’s the point



The cultural revolution of the 1960s undermined every pillar of American identity, and public religion was no exception. Supreme Court rulings in 1962 and 1963 struck down state-led prayer and mandatory scripture reading in public schools. While these decisions didn’t explicitly ban biblical education as literature or cultural instruction, they effectively removed it from the classroom. Over time, institutional pressure and administrative caution eliminated nearly all engagement with the Bible in the public square.

As large-scale immigration introduced greater religious diversity, demands for a more “neutral” education further pushed cultural Christianity into the realm of the taboo. Christmas and Easter became “winter” and “spring” break. Schools reduced biblical references to passing mentions — if they acknowledged them at all. The result: a rootless, amnesiac society cut off from the spiritual and cultural traditions that once inspired greatness.

By removing the religion that shaped our national character, we’ve lost the ability to understand or transmit our own culture. This is no accident.

Humans remain narrative creatures. Even in an age obsessed with data and reason, we understand ourselves through stories. Every civilization has a set of core narratives that define its identity. These stories echo through its literature, art, science, and daily language. People imitate the archetypes they inherit — knowingly or not—so the stories a culture preserves shape its citizens’ behavior, values, and imagination.

For ancient Greece and Rome, Homer’s “Iliad” served as a civilizational anchor. For Western Christendom, that role belonged to the Bible.

As with all enduring societies, the Western canon both reflected and created its civilization. The canon includes the foundational works every educated citizen was once expected to know, at least in outline: “The Divine Comedy,” “Paradise Lost,” the plays of Shakespeare. But none of these are truly intelligible without biblical knowledge. These literary masterpieces do more than quote scripture — they shape theology itself, popularizing specific interpretations of Christian doctrine.

Art doesn’t just reflect a culture; it defines it.

The stories are everywhere: David and Goliath, Samson and Delilah, Judas the betrayer, the unwelcome prophet, the good Samaritan, the sacrificial Christ. These archetypes saturate Western literature. Even works not explicitly Christian — like Shakespeare’s plays — reference scripture on nearly every page. And for directly inspired texts like Dante’s “Inferno,” biblical illiteracy makes the work incomprehensible.

Yet American legal doctrine now treats biblical ignorance as a virtue. Misreadings of the First Amendment have transformed cultural illiteracy into a legal mandate. Forget the Bible’s spiritual value — removing it from schools broke the chain of cultural transmission.

As a former public school history teacher, I saw this biblical and cultural illiteracy firsthand. I routinely had to explain the story of David and Goliath or the birth of Christ to 16-year-olds — just so they could understand the references in a historical speech or literary text. Students weren’t rejecting scripture. They had simply never heard it before.

Shakespeare and Dante still haunt English literature curricula, but only as lifeless relics. These works already challenge students. Strip out the biblical framework, and they become unreadable. That’s one reason woke activists now demand their removal altogether. Too white. Too Christian. Too patriarchal. But the push to obliterate the canon also masks a deeper failure: Today’s teachers often find these works unteachable — because students lack the cultural foundation to make sense of them.

Mass immigration has intensified the demand for multiculturalism and secularization. As the public square fills with Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and atheists, American institutions have stripped out the Christianity that once defined them. But by removing the religion that shaped our national character, we’ve lost the ability to understand or transmit our own culture.

This is no accident. It’s the only outcome multiculturalism has ever produced.

America now suffers from a full-blown identity crisis. If we hope to recover a coherent national identity, we must start with the Bible. Conservatives and Christians who want to revive the American tradition must demand — unapologetically — the return of scripture and prayer to public life.

These practices weren’t controversial for most of our history. The Constitution didn’t suddenly change because the left launched a cultural revolution. Students — even those who are secular or from foreign faiths — still need biblical literacy to understand the civilization they live in and the culture they’re supposedly assimilating into.

A general knowledge of the Bible is indispensable. Without it, American education remains incomplete — and a unified national culture remains impossible.

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Parents fight evil in schools — and seek justice at the Supreme Court



Easter is about the indignity of the cross being defeated by the only one who didn’t deserve to be on it so that we may be free to live forever in the Spirit. It was fitting, then, that in the shadow of Easter Sunday last week, full-throated indignity entered the U.S. Supreme Court to be challenged because people of faith have heard the call of their Lord to take up their own cross and follow.

A fan of the “Steve Deace Show,” Bryan Persak, informed me that his brother, Chris, is one of the plaintiffs in Mahmoud v. Taylor. The case involves parents from the Montgomery County, Maryland, school system fighting the porn-addicted educators who are cramming LGBT propaganda into their pupils’ hearts and minds.

You simply have no idea what God might ask you to do. But you must be ready to answer.

The court heard the case last Tuesday. Chris said that taking a stand came at a cost — threats against his kids and family — but he and his wife, Melissa, knew something needed to be done on behalf of the countless Montgomery County parents who feel helpless in the face of the evil they were being compelled not only to accept but to celebrate.

“By Tuesday, the nerves were gone and the Holy Spirit was with us,” Chris said. “There was an unbelievable peace and calmness. There are core things at stake for parents from many different backgrounds that are paramount. If we keep fighting about this, we aren’t going to have a country.”

Bryan stressed that with Muslim parents also plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the case displays true diversity — unifying around the common goal of rooting out the degrading sexualization of our children — in contrast to the woke version of diversity that demands its perversions be worshipped at every turn.

“Montgomery County found a way to unite parents whose religions have been at war for thousands of years,” he today. A ruling on the case is expected in June or July.

Bryan, who has also fought mask mandates in his own children’s school district, said he and his brother had good Christian parents who raised them to stand in the gap. Their mother, Michele, “raised heck” with politicians when he was stationed in Iraq and she discovered her son and his fellow soldiers didn’t have armor for their Humvees to protect them from IEDs.

Their father, Warren, when asked for advice about the wickedness being perpetrated by Montgomery County school officials, didn’t tell his son to play it safe. Instead, he insisted that “there are some hills worth dying on, that are worth the consequences.”

Well done, good and faithful servants! You raised actual men — a rare breed these days. Bryan admits, however, even that wasn’t enough to help him see his place in the world after coming back from war “mad at God.”

“I could have died four different times, and I don’t think I dealt with all that correctly,” Bryan told me. “Then I had my first child in 2017, and in 2020, I clearly saw the evil consuming the world with COVID and the trans stuff. I had to fight it, but I knew I couldn’t fight it by myself. It took me back to my faith. God told me that He sent me to be a soldier.”

Whether your calling is to be a soldier or something else, the big lesson from the Persaks’ story is this: “God told me” is the only certain place to start when figuring out your life mission. Yes, that’s going to mean having to get uncomfortable at times, like Bryan and Chris’ sister, Kathleen, who donated part of her liver two years ago to help an ailing family friend. You simply have no idea what God might ask you to do.

But you must be ready to answer.

In the name of Isaiah 8, Bryan said his family “has all stepped up when called” and that he hopes he is “teaching [his] children the same.” So those with ears to hear, let them hear:

You are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. It is the Lord of armies whom you are to regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, and He shall be your dread. Then He will become a sanctuary.

Amen.

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