8-803.Clergy.

Section 8-803 creates a privilege for clergy-penitent communications. An accredited clergyman or practitioner of a religious denomination cannot be compelled, in any court, before any administrative board or agency, or by any public officer, to disclose a confession or admission made to them in their professional character or as a spiritual advisor, when that confession or admission comes in the course of the discipline enjoined by their religious body's rules or practices.

The protection reaches beyond formal confessions. The clergy member also cannot be compelled to divulge any information obtained in that same professional or spiritual-advisor character. The statute ties the privilege to the practices of the religious body the clergy member belongs to and the religion they profess, so the scope of what counts as protected disciplinary communication depends on those practices.

Unlike several other privileges in this Part, Section 8-803 contains no enumerated exceptions or waiver provisions in its text. It states the privilege directly, without the risk-of-harm carve-outs or consent mechanisms found in sections like 8-802.1 or 8-804.