BOSTON (AP) A United Church of Christ teacher charged with sexual abuse wants his confession to church leaders suppressed, saying it was a spiritual act and citing a state law that bars clergy from disclosing confessions from people seeking comfort.
Daniel R. Ferris of Millbury allegedly confessed that he abused two girls when confronted by three church ministers and two lay leaders. The church officials immediately reported Ferris's alleged conduct to the state Department of Social Services.
Ferris's lawyer says the church's ministerial and investigative roles should have been kept separate.
''My client states that they expressed to him that there would be some kind of spiritual benefit to acknowledging wrongdoing, and that he felt they were acting in their religious roles, not in some investigatory role,'' David Ricciardone, Ferris's attorney, told The Boston Globe.
In a hearing Thursday, the church was expected to defend its decision to report Ferris.
Church officials say the confession came after they stated clearly that the purpose of their March meeting with Ferris was to turn him in to police and social service officials, and that he could go to jail. They say they filled out a DSS form on the spot.
The case, scheduled to be argued before a Worcester County judge Thursday, is the latest twist in an ongoing debate in Massachusetts over a church's responsibility to report sexual abuse.
The state legislature is debating a law requiring clergy to report allegations of sexual abuse following a case in which a Catholic priest allegedly continued to molest children after parents had complained to Cardinal Bernard F. Law.
The Archdiocese of Boston, after initially opposing the law, now supports it.
But even the proposed law contains an exemption for statements made in spiritual confession.
Officials at the United Church of Christ, a Protestant denomination known historically as the Congregationalists, said that would not apply in this case.
''He's grasping at straws,'' said Susan Dickerman, associate minister of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ. ''We were very clear that we were going to report him.''
Ferris, 56, was a religious education teacher at a small church in central Massachusetts and abused two of his students over a period of years, Dickerman said. She asked that neither the town nor the church be named.
He has pleaded innocent to six counts of indecent assault and battery on children under age 14, two counts of indecent assault and battery and three counts of posing a minor in a state of nudity for a photograph.
His lawyer is also attempting to have a confession Ferris allegedly made to police March 14 tossed out.