(OSV News) — Washington state’s bishops filed a lawsuit May 29 over a new law requiring clergy to report child abuse or neglect without exceptions for clergy-penitent privilege. Other mandatory reporters in Washington state include school personnel, nurses, social service counselors and psychologists. The Washington State Catholic Conference, which is the public policy arm of the state’s Catholic bishops, previously supported a different version of the legislation to make clergy mandatory reporters that did include an exception for hearing confession, part of the sacrament of reconciliation. “A few politicians in Washington state won’t break them. And the Constitution protects them.”Earlier in May, the Justice Department said it planned to investigate what it called an apparent conflict between the Washington state law and the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment.