The Protection of the Perpetrators – How Trump’s Department of Justice Treats Silence as Holier than the Suffering of Children

It was a move that calls into question everything a democratic state claims to know about responsibility: On July 19, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice under President Donald Trump actively contributed to blocking a law passed by the State of Washington that would have required Catholic priests to report sexual child abuse – even if it was revealed in the confessional. The bill, SB 5375, had been signed by Governor Bob Ferguson in May. It was scheduled to go into effect on July 27. But in the case of Etienne v. Ferguson, Case No. 3:25-cv-05415-DGE, the U.S. Department of Justice intervened on the side of the Catholic Church. It was a rare and clear act of political partisanship – and a moral declaration that fundamentally undermines trust in state accountability. At the heart of the case is Etienne v. Ferguson, named after the Archbishop of Seattle, Paul D. Etienne, who, together with other bishops of the state, filed a lawsuit against Governor Ferguson. The plaintiffs invoked the constitutionally protected confessional seal and claimed that the law threatened their freedom of religion. The case quickly developed into a fundamental dispute over the boundaries of religious immunity in a secular constitutional state. The presiding federal judge, David G. Estudillo, appointed under the Biden administration, sided with the DOJ’s arguments – and ruled in a 25-page order that the law was likely unconstitutional. The confessional, he wrote, was a protected sacrament. The legal obligation to report abuse violated religious freedom under the First Amendment. It was the DOJ itself that had pushed this conflict into the spotlight – with a so-called Religious Freedom Priority Order, issued on February 28, 2025, signed by President Trump and registered as Executive Order 14099. It mandates that the Department of Justice must review any legislative proposal that could be interpreted as a potential restriction on religious practices. In this way, the law protecting abused children became the target of a political agenda that seeks not protection, but the preservation of power.

The reaction was devastating. Democratic Senator Noel Frame, a key architect of SB 5375, called it a historic setback: “Children will continue to suffer because religious authorities they trust are not being held accountable.” Particularly cynical is the fact that the confessional seal once again proves to be a loophole for systemic abuse – a pattern that runs through decades of ecclesiastical scandals. The 2018 Grand Jury Report from Pennsylvania documented over one thousand named victims and found that numerous offenses had been revealed during confession but never reported. And even though Catholic officials have claimed for years that lessons have been learned, it is now clear: the institutional wall of protection is back. Higher than ever. Reinforced by the state. We are deeply involved in these investigations – in cooperation with Child USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and survivor organizations from seven states. In conversations with whistleblowers, lawyers, and former church investigators, a shockingly clear picture emerges: the silence of the confessional is not merely a theological principle but a functional element of a structural protection system. It does not protect the sacred – it protects perpetrators. And it serves the preservation of power within an apparatus that resists outside intervention.

The parallels to the Epstein case are not rhetorical exaggeration but legally tangible. There too, circles of silence, loyalty, and institutional interest outweighed the protection of children. There too, political and economic entanglements obstructed investigations. And there too, documents exist that were never released – withheld out of consideration for institutions, not justice. In both cases, Epstein and Etienne v. Ferguson, a disturbing constant emerges: child abuse is not only overlooked but actively shielded from the law – through procedures, delays, and confidentiality. In confessionals, in redacted files, in political decrees. What is now unfolding in the United States could become a precedent for Europe. In Poland, France, and even parts of Germany, the confessional seal is already being politically instrumentalized – as a bulwark against state transparency. The recent success of the Trump administration in court is likely to embolden fundamentalist groups worldwide. The signal is unmistakable: those with enough influence can turn moral principles into constitutional exceptions. This is no longer about individual priests, nor about dogma or sacraments. It is about the relationship between the state and its duty to protect. About the question of whether the life of a child weighs less than the silence of a man in priestly robes. And it is about the disturbing realization that a government committed to protecting religious institutions is willing to ignore the suffering of children to do so. The case will likely end up before the Supreme Court. But even now, it is clear how deep the political interference runs. Of the nine justices, six were nominated or confirmed by Trump. The outcome is predictable. And the ruling that will ultimately be handed down will decide not only the future of Washington – but whether silence remains a sacred act. Or is finally named for what it is in these cases: complicity in the cover-up of systemic abuse.

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