Case LXII: Seal of the Confessional in Court

A lawyer consulted a priest regarding the following case:

Some time ago a certain person—whom we will call Anna—died, and in her will bequeathed all her property to a farmer in whose house she had for many years received very kind hospitality. She did not mention her relatives in her will, but they are now questioning its validity and declaring that she was in her dotage and incapable of making a will at all. The farmer, however, who has inherited the property, says: “ Anna was not altogether weak in her mind, for she often went to confession and Holy Communion; you have only to ask her confessor, our parish priest.” “It is my duty,” said the lawyer, “to defend the will, and I do not know whether to call the priest as witness or not. It would be unpleasant if he refused to answer before the Court, and pleaded the seal of the confessional. What would you do?” The priest whom he was consulting hesitated a little and then replied: “I should refuse in court to give any answer at all with reference to the confessional.”

Is this priest’s opinion correct?

According to Müller, Theol. Mor., III. § 169, The sacramental seal generally comprehends everything manifested in confession whose revelation would bring the Sacrament into odium and burden the penitent. A priest therefore must never reveal the sins confessed, nor their circumstances and causes, nor the penance imposed, nor any natural infirmities and tendencies in his penitent, e. g., a tendency to scrupulosity, for these things become known to him in the confessional. The fact that a penitent has made a confession to a certain priest cannot be a secret. The only case in which a priest ought not to state that he has heard a confession is if such a statement would lead others to infer that the penitent had committed and confessed some particular sin. There is no reason to fear anything of the kind in the case under discussion, where no particular sins, but the general intelligence of the deceased penitent, is in question.

What ought the priest to say if the judge asked him directly to give his opinion of Anna, and to say whether he considered her weak-minded or responsible for her actions? He would then be required to state whether, on the ground of her confession, he regarded Anna as capable of sinning and of receiving absolution.

Without betraying any secret, he could answer this question affirmatively, since he had allowed Anna to receive Holy Communion, and he would not have done so, had he not been able to absolve her, on account of her weak intellect.

Such a statement would not break the seal of the confessional, and would not be detrimental to the dead woman. The priest whom the lawyer consulted, however, said that he would give no answer in court regarding the confessional. He might perhaps allege, as his justification for this view, that an affirmative answer on the part of the confessor might possibly cedere in odium sacramenti, should the party contesting the validity of the will lose their case as a result of his statement.

They might possibly say: "If the priest does not observe the secrecy of the confessional before a court of law, I will not go to confession again." Such unjust and malicious remarks might be made afterwards regarding the Sacrament of Penance; but if there were no reason to fear any such observations, the priest might make his statement tuta conscientia. The judge would have no power to compel him to speak, for he is protected by state laws which hold that what is confided to a priest in confession or under the seal of secrecy is an inviolable official secret and he can give no information with regard to it.—Petrus Dolzer.