Seal of Confession Canon Law Made Easy

Q1: I would like to put before you a question with regards to revealing of confessional substance under the permission granted past the penitent.  My question is "Whether past the penitent'southward permission, a priest may reveal to another a sin which he knows under the seal of confession?"  Thank you! –Father R.

Q2: I am studying Canon Police every bit office of my basic theological studies (I am a religious seminarian). I am reading a Commentary on Canon Police [in another language] about sacraments. In the part speaking about the seal of confession, the author goes into smashing lengths with regard to everything the priest cannot do with the confession information. He even tells an imaginary story, when a penitent tells the priest that the Mass wine he is most to use for Mass is poisoned and co-ordinate to the author, the priest cannot change the Mass wine, for that would reveal the evil intent of the penitent! He tin only escape or celebrate the Mass nevertheless. I found that example extremely foreign and exaggerated…. Can you lot help me to understand this issue? –Pat

A: Autonomously from the bailiwick-thing, both of these questions share something else in common: they come up from non-Christian, missionary countries where Catholics comprise merely a tiny percentage of the population.  This isn't a coincidence, either.  In those parts of the world which don't have a potent, longstanding Catholic presence, and/or where the civilisation hasn't (yet) been imbued with Catholicism, one frequently finds that Catholics don't ever have a good "feel" for when and how to apply the Church's rules to everyday life.  So allow'due south take a look at what the Church says—and doesn't say—nigh the practical application of its very strict rules on the confessional seal to some concrete, realistic situations.

Equally we saw in "Tin a Priest Ever Reveal What is Said in Confession? (Role I)," the Church'south position on priests revealing the contents of a penitent's confession is unequivocal: canon 983.one tells usa that the sacramental seal is inviolable, and it is absolutely wrong for a confessor in any style to beguile a penitent, for any reason whatsoever, either by discussion or in whatsoever other fashion.  In short, penitents should always rest bodacious that what is confessed in the confessional, stays in the confessional.  Nobody should always need to worry that the priest hearing his confession will become out and repeat it to others—and if the unthinkable happened, the priest would incur a latae sententiae excommunication every bit per canon 1388.i.  (See "Have Pro-Abortion Politicians Excommunicated Themselves?" for an in-depth discussion of what the term latae sententiae ways.)

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church uses different wording in its description of the sacramental seal, the information it contains is substantively the aforementioned:

Given the delicacy and greatness of this ministry building and the respect due to persons, the Church declares that every priest who hears confessions is bound under very severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents take confessed to him.  He can make no utilize of cognition that confession gives him about penitents' lives.  This clandestine, which admits of no exceptions, is called the "sacramental seal," because what the penitent has made known to the priest remains "sealed" by the sacrament. (CCC 1467)

Information technology seems very blackness-and-white—and in a sense information technology is.  Only as our questioners indicate, there are countless instances where a priest might want (or be asked) to repeat something that was mentioned in the confessional without direct implicating the penitent, or to use information he gained from a person's confession in some indirect style.  For example, let's imagine that the penitent is an army officer, and during his confession he mentions in passing that his military unit is going to be deployed next Tuesday.  Since this detail info doesn't involve a sin that the penitent confessed, tin the priest repeat information technology?  Or what about a scenario consequent with Father R's question: if someone confesses that he committed a crime, and is willing to turn himself in to the authorities provided that the priest will accompany him to the constabulary station and human action as a mediator, tin can a confessor agree to do this?

Suddenly the wording of canon 983.1 doesn't seem terribly helpful, does it?  What are the Church's rules about these more specific sorts of things?  The answer might surprise you: there are no official, written guidelines governing these situations.

At beginning, this may seem to be a glaring omission!  Why would the Church building say nothing, instead of explaining to clergy and laity alike what exactly a confessor is permitted to say, and what he isn't?  One would recollect that such directives would be extremely helpful.

Merely afterward pondering the effect a footling more, it should become clear that Rome's silence is totally deliberate, and makes complete sense.  What the Church apparently wants to avoid is the classic "slippery slope," in which any further discussion of the seal of confession could appear to be constituting exceptions to the rule, which end upwards damaging the overall integrity of the seal.  Allow's focus on only one aspect of this complicated outcome for a moment, and imagine that the Church building officially stated in writing that if a penitent gives his confessor permission, then the confessor tin can repeat what was confessed.  That might strike everyone as being totally reasonable, correct?  But at present envision the kinds of problems that could quickly arise if such a statement were in existence.

For instance, let's say George asks Fr. Mark if he would talk to George's married woman, in an attempt to patch up their failing marriage.  George suggests that the priest could repeat what George said in his last confession, and Fr. Mark agrees (note that in our imaginary scenario, the Vatican has formally stated that this is permitted).  But George causeless the priest would talk nigh only the sins directly relating to his marital problems, and never imagined that Fr. Mike would also mention that George had confessed to lying to his sister-in-law. What a dislocated mess this kind of misunderstanding could cause!  When it's time for George to go to confession again, will he want to?  For that matter, volition his wife or his sis-in-law desire to?

Or instead, allow'due south imagine that Fr. John tells xv-yr-onetime Susan that he wants to "assist her" by talking to her parents about the shoplifting that she confessed.  (Remember that in our fictitious scenario, both of them are aware that the Church has officially allowed this.) Susan definitely does not want him to do this; but rightly or wrongly, she feels pressured to accede.  Before long, give-and-take gets around in the parish that Fr. John occasionally offers to help penitents by repeating contents of their confessions to relevant parties with their permission; but since he has a naturally strong personality, his offer is (again, rightly or wrongly) interpreted by many parishioners as bullying.  What will parishioners who are already hesitant to approach the confessional be inclined to do?

Y'all go the idea.  The fact is, if the Church building were formally to approve this kind of exception, it would naturally put the whole idea into the heads of both well-intentioned clergy and equally well-intentioned laity, who otherwise would never have thought of it in the first place.  And as we can see from these two entirely fictitious cases, the mere existence of such an official statement from the Vatican would stop up vitiating the integrity of the sacramental seal.  Before you know it, everyone could observe themselves playing fast-and-loose with confessional matter: to invent still another case, Fr. Rob might say to a penitent, "Joe, your situation ties into the homily I'm preparing.  Could I echo your story when I preach at Lord's day Mass?"  And Joe might answer, "Yeah sure, whatever!"  Ultimately, the confessional seal could get most meaningless. That, in a nutshell, is why you won't discover any rules on this subject.

At the same time, however, the absence of any official directives on this subject doesn't automatically mean that it's forbidden, either.  Theologians have been discussing confession-scenarios like those raised by our questioners for centuries!  Applying logic, they have reached their own, reasonable conclusions—ever aware, of grade, that the opinion of a theologian, or even a dozen theologians, doesn't in itself constitute official church teaching.

Back in the 1200'southward, St. Thomas Aquinas himself opined on a couple of different situations relevant to our subject.  Here'southward a question that he raised and answered, that directly applies to the example of our mythical war machine officeholder, mentioned previously:

Whether the seal of confession extends to other matters than those which take reference to confession?

…I reply that, the seal of confession does not extend directly to other matters than those which have reference to sacramental confession, however indirectly matters also which are not connected with sacramental confession are affected past the seal of confession, those, for instance, which might atomic number 82 to the discovery of a sinner or of his sin. Nevertheless these matters besides must be well-nigh carefully hidden, both on business relationship of scandal, and to avoid leading others into sin through their becoming familiar with information technology. (Suppl. Q 11 Art. two co.)

In other words, it was Aquinas' opinion that something mentioned during a confession apart from actual sins—like the fact that our armed forces officer'south unit is going to exist deployed next Tuesday—is not direct covered by the seal of confession.  (We ourselves could and so extrapolate from his opinion, and conclude that therefore a priest who revealed such a thing would presumably not incur latae sententiae excommunication as per canon 1388.one)  Even so, Aquinas holds that confessors notwithstanding should refrain from revealing this sort of information, learned in the confessional.

It's an entirely reasonable, logical opinion; but that'due south all it is.  This wasn't official church education back in the 13^th century, and it still isn't official today.

Similarly, Aquinas addressed the very question raised by Father R.:

Whether by the penitent's permission, a priest may reveal to some other a sin which he knows under the seal of confession?

…I respond that, there are two reasons for which the priest is spring to keep a sin secret: starting time and chiefly, because this very secrecy is essential to the sacrament, in so far as the priest knows that sin, as it is known to God, Whose place he holds in confession: secondly, in order to avoid scandal. At present the penitent can make the priest know, as a man, what he knew before only as God knows it, and he does this when he allows him to divulge it: so that if the priest does reveal information technology, he does not break the seal of confession. Yet he should beware of giving scandal by revealing the sin, lest he be deemed to have cleaved the seal. (Suppl. Q eleven Art. 4 co.)

In other words, if Father R. lived dorsum in the 1200'south and submitted his question to Thomas Aquinas, the answer would have been "yes," with the add-on of some very stiff cautionary words.  But in one case again, bear in mind that even though Aquinas was i of the greatest theologians in the history of the Cosmic Church, this is but an stance.

So what should we accept away from all this?  It'south quite elementary: in matters pertaining to the seal of confession, when in dubiousness, don't .

That said, there are a couple of unlike ways that confessors/penitents can legitimately get around this.  Everyone agrees, for example, that if a penitent wants his confessor to reveal something which he mentioned in confession, the penitent only has to repeat it to the confessor over again, outside the confessional.  Very like shooting fish in a barrel!  If the priest hears it exterior the context of a confession, so the seal of confession does not use.

And speaking of hearing things outside the confessional, it's worth mentioning at this point that if a priest hears of a penitent'southward sin though any other exterior source (assuming, of grade, that the other source wasn't someone else'southward confession!), he could conceivably echo it.  For instance, if Senator X confessed to Fr. Bill that he had committed adultery, and Fr. Nib reads near the Senator's adulterous relationship in the newspapers, he is certainly not prevented from mentioning it.  True, Fr. Bill could non specify to anyone that Senator 10 himself had told him this in confession; but he could certainly reference the mere fact of the Senator'south infidelity, since he had heard about information technology from sources other than the confessional.

By now, Father R.'due south question has been answered, and then let's plough to Pat's.  As mentioned before, Pat is a seminarian, studying in a non-Christian state; and since the language of instruction is non English or whatsoever other major western language, the textbooks are presumably written by local clergy.  This perhaps accounts for the bizarre case Pat found in a canonical discussion of the sacramental seal.  Let's have the story apart and see what conclusions we can reach.

In this fictitious account, a penitent confesses that he has poisoned the wine that is currently sitting on the chantry, to be used at the next Mass.  What can/should the priest exercise?  Well, as nosotros've already seen in a higher place, one thing a priest-confessor tin e'er do is ask the penitent to tell him this information outside of the confessional.  (In this case, the confessor might even make absolution contingent upon the penitent doing this.)  Some other option would exist for the confessor to order the penitent (perhaps as office of his penance?), to walk out of the confessional and get rid of that poisoned wine right now!

But at present permit's say that for any reason, the penitent is unwilling to do this.  Co-ordinate to Pat's textbook, the priest has only two choices: celebrate the Mass and be poisoned, or "escape."  That's considering the textbook-writer claims the priest cannot go up to the chantry after hearing confessions, and modify the Mass wine.  To this one can only reply, why non?  How would this action directly betray the penitent, by revealing his confession to others?  Why would anybody fifty-fifty make a connectedness betwixt the fact that the priest was only hearing confessions a moment ago, and his removal of the cruet of wine from the sanctuary?

You have to wonder what the writer of this improbable story was thinking.  To exist fair, it could exist that in this region of the earth, at that place have been problems with clergy maintaining the seal of confession—and and then this writer may have been overcompensating, in an attempt to emphasize its seriousness to seminarians.  But there are lots of wholly innocent reasons why a priest might be rearranging/changing such items before Mass, that have nothing whatsoever to practice with hearing a detail person'south confession.  You'd be hard-pressed to make the argument that in such an unrealistic state of affairs, the priest violated the sacramental seal.

A year or two ago, I was sitting in a Roman parish church before Mass, while a priest was hearing confessions a few yards away.  Suddenly the priest rushed out of the confessional; he was literally shaking and pulled his rosary from his pocket.

A few moments later on, a human (who was not a regular parishioner) emerged from the other side of the confessional.  He grinned in amusement at the priest, who pointedly turned his back on the human and clutched his rosary.  The man walked out of the church, all the same grin, while the priest took deep breaths to compose himself before he returned to the confessional box.

It's pretty obvious that this was not a run-of-the-mill confessional experience!  We can all form our ain ideas most what might have happened in in that location—simply our ideas probably wouldn't all exist identical, and we might all be wrong.  No reasonable person could suggest that this poor priest violated the seal of confession, and betrayed the "penitent" by his actions—although this seems to be the conclusion one would accept to depict from reading Pat's seminary textbook.  In fact, the priest (who didn't say a give-and-take through all this) wasn't intending to telegraph data to anyone else sitting there in the church; his only wish was to get away from what was apparently a horrible state of affairs.  Since he knew what had only happened and we don't, we can but defer to his judgment.

God only knows the sorts of things that Catholic priests hear in the confessional and are required to go along to themselves.  Equally discussed above, this requirement exists to protect the integrity of the sacrament of penance; without information technology, countless Catholics would be afraid to approach the confessional to unburden themselves of their sins—since they'd naturally object to the possibility that the priest would tell others what they'd said.  The Church's strict rules show her nifty wisdom and understanding of sinful human nature!  Permit'southward pray for priests, who have to refrain from sharing what they hear in the confessional, sometimes at great emotional price.  And let'southward give thanks God for the gift of the sacramental seal, which allows u.s.a. to confess even the most embarassing sins without fear that they'll exist repeated to others.

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Source: https://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2019/06/06/can-a-priest-ever-reveal-what-is-said-in-confession-part-ii/

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