NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — An independent Catholic bishop has thrown his support behind a federal lawsuit filed by a local death row inmate and his priest against the Tennessee Department of Correction.
“The seal of the confessional is not Father Hood’s personal scruple, and it is not a preference he might set aside under pressure. It is the law of this Church, binding on every priest in it,” said Rev. James St. George, Bishop of the Diocese of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Old Catholic Churches International.
The lawsuit, which was filed in May 2025 by John Michael Bane and Rev. Jeffrey K. Hood Jr., seeks millions in damages and an injunction to allow for the private, unrecorded sacrament of confession for Bane and all future death row inmates in the state…