A federal judge sided with Catholic priests, blocking a Washington law that targeted the confidentiality of confession.

The 1953 Alfred Hitchcock film “I Confess,” based on an earlier play, features a priest suspected of murder. He’s innocent, and has even heard the murderer’s confession – but cannot clear his own name ...

One supporter of the law, a member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, called the court decision "a ...

The conservative legal group Alliance for Defending Freedom, which filed on the churches’ behalf, argued in a press release that the state is singling out priests by punishing them for respecting the ...

The laws of the Catholic Church require priests to maintain the seal of confession or face excommunication. Washington’s law would have forced priests to choose between potentia ...

Washington state has dropped its efforts to require clergy to report sexual abuse when the information is revealed during the ...

A confessional is seen in a file photo. Washington state’s government and its Catholic bishops reached an agreement Oct. 10, ...

A motion filed in federal district court Oct. 10 affirmed that state and local governments would stop attempting to require ...

In Etienne v. Ferguson, the Archdiocese of Seattle and the dioceses of Spokane and Yakima argued that the new law violated ...

Confession, the Catholic and Orthodox practice of listing one’s sins in the presence of a priest who then offers absolution and is sworn to secrecy under pain of eternal damnation, has long been a ...

The Permanent Council of the Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference has expressed shock over the proposition of a bill that ...