What happens when a law designed to protect children intersects with constitutional protections for religious autonomy? The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in Doe v. The Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints addresses this question: whether statements made by Paul Adams to LDS bishops regarding the abuse of his children were protected under Arizona’s clergy exemption to mandatory child abuse reporting laws, or whether the bishops had a legal obligation to report the information to authorities. The case was not simply about religious confidentiality; rather, it required the Court to examine whether the communications satisfied the requirements of Arizona’s clergy exemption and whether applying the reporting law would improperly interfere with religious autonomy. The decision reflects the broader challenge of balancing the state’s interest in protecting children from harm with constitutional protections that limit government involvement in religious practices and internal religious decisions.
The Arizona Supreme Court addressed this issue in Doe v. The Corporation of the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The case involved a conflict between two important legal principles: the state’s responsibility to protect children through mandatory reporting laws and the constitutional protection of religious organizations’ autonomy over their beliefs and internal practices. More broadly, the case raised questions about when religious beliefs and practices should receive legal protection and when religious organizations must comply with generally applicable laws that apply to the broader community.
Although the First Amendment protects religious freedom and limits government interference in matters of religious doctrine and internal governance, religious organizations are not automatically exempt from all civil laws. The Arizona Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the Church defendants, holding that courts generally cannot substitute their own interpretation of religious practices for the interpretation of the religious organization when determining whether the clergy exemption applies.
The case arose from allegations that Paul Adams sexually abused his children between 2005 and 2015. In 2011, Adams disclosed the abuse to Bishop John Herrod of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Bisbee Ward during a private meeting. He later repeated his admissions during additional meetings with Church leaders, including a disciplinary council, after which he was excommunicated from the Church. The children later alleged that the Church leaders did not report Adams’s statements to law enforcement and that the failure to report allowed the abuse to continue.
The Church defendants argued that Adams’s statements were received as confidential communications made in the course of religious counseling and disciplinary practices and were therefore protected under Arizona’s clergy exemption to mandatory reporting laws. Under Arizona Revised Statutes § 13-3620, members of the clergy are generally required to report child abuse unless the information was received as a confession or confidential communication made as part of religious practice and the clergy member determines that maintaining confidentiality is reasonable and necessary according to the religion. In 2017, federal authorities discovered videos documenting the abuse, leading to criminal charges against Adams and his wife. Leizza Adams pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison, while Paul Adams later admitted the abuse to law enforcement but died by suicide before trial. The children subsequently filed a civil lawsuit against the Church and the bishops, arguing that the bishops had a legal obligation to report Adams’s disclosures under Arizona’s mandatory reporting law.
The children sued the Church and the bishops, arguing that Adams’s disclosures should have been reported under Arizona’s mandatory child abuse reporting law. They argued that the bishops’ failure to report violated their legal obligations and allowed the abuse to continue. A key question was whether Adams’s statements qualified as a “confession” or “confidential communication” under Arizona law. The children argued that the communications did not qualify for the exemption because some disclosures occurred in the presence of individuals other than the bishop, including Adams’s wife and participants in the Church disciplinary council.
The Arizona Supreme Court therefore examined whether courts could independently decide whether a communication satisfied the requirements of the clergy exemption or whether such determinations required courts to defer to a religious organization’s understanding of its own religious practices.
The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Church defendants, holding that courts generally cannot determine whether a religious leader correctly interpreted or applied the doctrines of their faith. The Court explained that the First Amendment protects religious autonomy by limiting government interference in matters involving religious doctrine, internal governance, and religious practices. This principle, known as the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, allows courts to apply neutral laws while preventing them from resolving disputes that require judicial interpretation of religious beliefs or evaluation of whether a religious organization followed its own religious rules correctly.
A key part of the Court’s decision was distinguishing between two different legal concepts: the Clergy-Penitent Privilege and the Clergy Reporting Exemption. The Clergy-Penitent Privilege protects confidential communications between a person and a member of the clergy, such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or other religious leader. This privilege generally prevents a clergy member from being compelled to disclose a person’s confession in legal proceedings without the consent of the person who made the confession. Importantly, the privilege belongs to the person making the confession, not the clergy member. In this case, Paul Adams was the person who made the statements, and questions remain about how such a privilege operates when the person who made the statement is deceased.
The Clergy Reporting Exemption involves a different legal question. It addresses whether a clergy member must report information about child abuse when that information is received through a confession or confidential religious communication. Unlike the Clergy-Penitent Privilege, the reporting exemption focuses on the clergy member’s determination of whether withholding a report is reasonable and necessary within the concepts of their religion. In this case, the Arizona Supreme Court held that the exemption required courts to defer to the Church’s understanding of its own religious practices and whether reporting would conflict with religious obligations.
The Arizona Supreme Court explained that, under Arizona law, a “confession” means a confidential acknowledgment or admission of a crime, sin, or fault made to a member of the clergy for the purpose of seeking religious guidance or forgiveness. A “confidential communication” refers to a statement or conversation that is treated as private and made with the understanding that it will remain confidential. The Court recognized that determining whether a communication qualifies as a religious confession or confidential communication may require consideration of a religious organization’s beliefs and practices. Therefore, questions such as whether an individual qualifies as clergy, whether a communication was considered a confession, and whether it was treated as confidential may involve matters of religious doctrine.
However, this raises a broader legal question: while courts may be required to respect a religious organization’s interpretation of its own beliefs, should courts still be able to determine whether a claimed religious practice conflicts with neutral secular laws designed to protect individuals from harm? The Arizona Supreme Court concluded that, in this case, such an inquiry would improperly require courts to interpret religious doctrine.
The Court ruled in favor of the Church defendants because it concluded that Arizona’s clergy exemption applied. The Court determined that the bishops qualified as clergy members under Church practices, that Adams’ statements were treated as religious confessions, and that communications made during counseling sessions and disciplinary proceedings were considered confidential under Church doctrine. The Court also concluded that the bishops’ decision to maintain confidentiality was based on their understanding of the Church’s religious obligations.
Because these issues required an evaluation of the Church’s interpretation of its own religious practices, the Court held that judges and juries could not substitute their own interpretation for that of the religious organization. However, the decision raises the question about what role courts should have in determining when a claimed religious practice conflicts with secular laws, particularly when the alleged conduct involves harm to children.
The decision reinforces the principle that religious organizations have authority over matters involving their own beliefs, practices, and internal religious governance. The Court held that judges generally cannot determine whether a religious organization correctly interpreted its own doctrine or whether religious leaders properly followed religious rules. However, the decision also raises a question about the limits of religious autonomy: if religious organizations must comply with neutral laws that apply to everyone, how should the law treat situations where a religious exemption allows conduct that may conflict with a legal duty designed to protect others?
In this case, the dispute was not about purely internal religious matters, such as worship practices or religious traditions. It involved allegations that religious confidentiality resulted in years of harm to children that may have been avoided. The Court explained that constitutional protections do not provide immunity for fraud or other non-religious wrongdoing, but the question remains whether failure to report child abuse should be viewed as a protected religious practice or as conduct subject to secular accountability.
From a human rights perspective, this case raises the question: when a child’s safety is at risk, how should the law balance religious autonomy with the responsibility to prevent and respond to abuse? Religious protections under the First Amendment serve an important purpose by preventing government interference in matters of faith, belief, and internal religious practices. A society that values religious freedom must allow diverse religious communities to exist without unnecessary government control.
However, this protection has limits. Religious freedom does not generally allow individuals or institutions to harm others or violate laws designed to protect public safety.
The difficult question is where the line should be drawn between protected religious practice and conduct that causes harm. Courts have historically recognized that religious belief alone does not excuse actions that endanger others. For example, individuals who failed to provide medical care to children based on religious beliefs have faced criminal consequences, and courts have intervened when religious practices involved physical harm or abuse. Similarly, practices involving violence against children, even when claimed to be religiously motivated, have not been protected when they violate criminal laws.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) emphasizes that protecting children from abuse, violence, and exploitation is a fundamental responsibility of governments and institutions. Article 3 requires that the best interests of the child be a primary consideration in decisions affecting children, while Articles 19 and 34 require states to take effective measures to protect children from abuse and sexual exploitation. From this perspective, the case highlights the tension between protecting religious liberty and ensuring that legal systems prioritize the safety, dignity, and welfare of children.
Although the United States has not ratified the CRC, the Convention recognizes important protections for children, including the right to be protected from abuse, violence, and exploitation. Because nearly every country in the world recognizes these basic protections, many human rights scholars argue that certain child protection principles reflected in the CRC have become part of customary international law. Some further argue that protections against serious harm to children may qualify as jus cogens norms—fundamental principles that apply to all states.
Under this view, the obligation to protect children from abuse is not dependent only on whether a country has formally ratified a treaty. It reflects an international commitment to protecting children’s safety, dignity, and well-being. The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision raises concerns because allowing confidentiality protections in cases involving admitted child sexual abuse may conflict with the global principle that children must be protected from harm and that systems should promote reporting, prevention, and effective responses to abuse.
As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a country whose legal decisions often receive international attention, the United States’ approach to child protection can influence global discussions about the relationship between religious freedom, institutional accountability, and the protection of vulnerable individuals. Decisions involving children’s rights may shape how other legal systems consider the balance between respecting religious practices and ensuring that institutions remain accountable when individuals are harmed. This issue is especially significant in countries where children and other vulnerable groups face barriers to reporting abuse and accessing justice.
The decision reflects an ongoing legal debate about the relationship between religious freedom and the enforcement of secular child protection laws. Supporters of broad religious autonomy argue that courts should not interfere in matters involving religious doctrine, internal governance, or religious practices, and that communications qualifying for protection under a religion’s established practices should remain confidential. Critics contend that religious autonomy should not shield institutions from accountability when children are harmed and argue that mandatory child abuse reporting laws should be applied. The case illustrates the continuing challenge of balancing constitutional protections for religious autonomy with the state's compelling interest in protecting children from abuse.
The Arizona Supreme Court did not decide whether Arizona’s clergy reporting exemption represents the best public policy or whether the legislature should modify the statute. Instead, the Court framed the legal question before it as: whether the bishops violated Arizona’s mandatory child abuse reporting law by not reporting Adams’s disclosures. To answer that question, the Court examined whether the communications fell within Arizona’s statutory clergy exemption.
Confidentiality is recognized in many professional relationships other than churches, but it is not absolute. For example, attorney-client privilege generally protects confidential communications between lawyers and clients, yet it contains recognized exceptions, such as the crime-fraud exception, and professional ethics rules may permit or require disclosure to prevent certain future crimes or serious bodily harm. One possible alternative analytical approach would have been to consider whether a similar principle should apply when confidential communications involve ongoing child abuse.
Under that approach, the Court could have concluded that protecting children from continuing harm outweighed maintaining confidentiality. The Arizona Supreme Court, however, did not adopt that analysis. Instead, it concluded that determining whether the communications remained confidential under Arizona's clergy exemption required deference to the Church's understanding of its own religious practices and that the First Amendment limited judicial review of those determinations.
Obviously, confidentiality is not treated identically across all areas of law. As in the attorney example, whether a communication remains confidential may depend on the circumstances in which it was made, including who was present during the communication and whether confidentiality was maintained. The Arizona Supreme Court, however, concluded that the relevant inquiry under Arizona's clergy exemption was not whether confidentiality would exist under secular legal standards, but whether the communications were considered confidential under the Church's religious practices. Because answering that question required consideration of religious doctrine, the Court held that the First Amendment limited further judicial inquiry.
The Court’s reasoning may also raise questions about how Arizona’s clergy exemption would apply in future cases involving other serious threats. For example, if an individual disclosed to a clergy member an intention to commit a violent act against a specific person or group, courts may be required to consider whether the communication falls within the statutory exemption or whether other legal obligations apply.
The question would not simply be whether the disclosure occurred in a religious setting, but whether the communication satisfies the requirements of Arizona’s reporting law and whether applying the exemption would conflict with other important public safety interests. The 2027 legislature must take up these questions to define the boundaries between religious autonomy, confidentiality protections, and the government’s responsibility to prevent serious harm.
By Sagarika Nandi, Legal Intern, Secular Arizona | LL.M. Candidate, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University
