“A priest when administering the sacrament of confession has no duty to report any confidential communications made during the confession that, by the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church, he is authorized to hear and is also duty bound to keep confidential,” the court ruled on October 28.
The ruling comes in a long-running case in which Father Jeff Bayhi, a priest of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, had been directed to testify about what a 14-year-old allegedly told him in Confession.
The young woman has said that she told Father Bayhi about being molested by a member of his parish.
Father Bayhi had refused to testify, citing the inviolability of the confessional seal.