ELCA Designates All Ministers as Mandated Reporters

The Social Message on Child Protection prioritizes protecting the vulnerable over confessional confidentiality

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Church Council adopted the Social Message on Child Protection as an official social message on Nov. 12. Among other assertions, the document says Lutheran ministers are expected to report child maltreatment even if the information is learned during confession.

Photo via ELCA

“Though state laws vary on rostered ministers’ status as mandated reporters,” says the pre-release copy of the social message, “in this church, the right to confidentiality in pastoral counseling or individual confession does not override the body of Christ’s clear biblical mandate to protect the vulnerable. Rostered ministers thus are expected to report child maltreatment.”

The document’s description of child maltreatment includes physical, material, and medical neglect and emotional, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse.

“The stark, tragic realities of child abuse and neglect in the U.S. today demand renewed commitment to this church’s sacred calling,” says the ELCA document.

Social messages are “ELCA teaching documents that draw from existing social teaching but focus direct attention on a particular social issue.” The position statement, according to WORLD News, reflects the views of the ELCA leadership but is not binding on individual parishioners.

In four sections, the 25-page document gives information on child maltreatment, laments the failure of faith communities to protect children, explains parts of the Lutheran theology of childhood, and gives basic principles, recommendations, and policies for ELCA worshiping communities, including the expectation that ministers report child maltreatment even if it is learned during confession.

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A majority of states mandate ministers to report child abuse and neglect, but most states grant the clergy penitent privilege, which exempts ministers from reporting information learned in pastoral communications. The specifics of mandated reporting laws continue to be a subject of debate.

Earlier this year, a Washington State law removed the exemption, and priests sued the state. MinistryWatch reported on the court ruling that overturned that law and the concerns that the phrase “solely through confession or its equivalent in other faiths” raises for Evangelical denominations. Boz Tchividjian, an attorney who works with abuse survivors, told MinistryWatch he doesn’t think Evangelical denominations need the clergy penitent privilege because mandated reporting doesn’t violate their theology of confession, which is private in nature.

The Augsburg Confession, which is a guiding document for Lutheran theology, says that confession and absolution from clergy is good, but that it is not required to explicitly confess every sin in front of others. Whereas the Catholic Sacrament of Confession means that a Catholic parishioner cannot follow their religious beliefs without confession to a priest, a Lutheran can confess directly to God. So when the ELCA leadership prioritizes reporting abuse over protecting confessional confidentiality, they are not violating the Lutheran theology of confession.

The document says, “This social message draws on Holy Scripture, Lutheran traditions, research, and the experiences of ELCA Lutherans to deepen this church’s understanding of child maltreatment, to offer a theological vision of childhood, and to call all members of the ELCA to strengthen their commitment to the dignity and well-being of children.”

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