Case XXXVII: The Seal of the Confessional

A hospital chaplain asks advice in the following circumstances: Many concubinarii are brought to our hospital, who, according to an excellent custom, are invited to make their confession and often do so. If they are seriously ill, we do our utmost to arouse in them true contrition and purpose of amendment. But sometimes they are not very ill, and the confessor learns only in the course of their confession that they are concubinarii; if they refuse altogether to abandon their sinful life, and will not even promise to avoid immorality, then he cannot of course give them absolution. In this case, how can he avoid breaking the seal of the confessional? Above the head of each patient hangs a card, so that the priest may see who has been recently admitted and whose confession he has to hear. If the patient makes his confession, the card remains hanging, to show who is to receive Holy Communion the next morning; it is removed after Communion has been given. If the patient makes no confession, the priest takes down the card. In the case that has been suggested, the nurse and all the other patients in the ward know that the priest has heard the sick man's confession. If he cannot give him absolution, and takes down the card, he betrays, out of confession, that the penitent has not been absolved; is this not a fractio sigilli? Is it correct to think that the patient has only himself to blame if he is not absolved, and this is betrayed by or inferred from the priest's behavior? Or is it correct to regard the confession as no real confession at all, because the penitent was not in the proper disposition and did not fulfil the required conditions?

If the priest tells the penitent that he cannot absolve him, but, in order not to break the seal of the confessional, he will give him his blessing and trust him to find some pretext for not receiving Holy Communion, he may be sure that the man will nevertheless communicate, and add sacrilege to his other sins.

Is the following a correct course of action? I tell the sick man that I cannot give him absolution, but he must pray to the Holy Ghost for light and make a better preparation; that I mean to stop his confession, remove the card, and tell the nurse, if she asks whether he is to receive Holy Communion, that he is going to make more preparation. Then I stand up, and do as I have said. Is there any fractio sigilli in this case? If so, how ought I to act?

The whole question turns on the seal of the confessional, which originates in sacramental confession, i. e., in a confession made with a view to receiving sacramental absolution (in ordine ad sacramentalem absolutionem). A sacramental confession is not (1) a purely historical account of sins, such as any one might give in a confidential conversation with a priest, without any reference to the Sacrament of penance. Nor is it (2) a confession made with the intention of asking advice, with no desire to receive the Sacrament, although a priest would be bound to keep a secretum naturale. Nor is (3) a sacramental confession one made to deceive or mislead a confessor, or to obtain some advantage, or to comply with the orders of a superior, as if the penitent were to say: " I have not come to confess my sins, but because I want to have a certificate of confession to show my wife."

In such a case there is no seal of the confessional, nor need the priest give the man any certificate; yet, as a rule, he is bound to do nothing that would put him to shame, nor to seem in any way to have broken the seal of the confessional; for, by refusing a certificate, he might lead the people present to imagine that he did so because he could not give the man absolution.

A confession invalidated by some defect, by want of proper dispositions or by sacrilegious omission of some sin on the part of the penitent, or by absence of intention or jurisdiction on that of the confessor, is nevertheless sacramental. It is only when the penitent knowingly makes his confession to a layman, or to a priest not possessing proper faculties, that the confession becomes a matter merely of a secretum naturale, unless the penitent made his confession to a priest in order that the latter might obtain the necessary faculties and then give him absolution. Anything that, if made known, could bring odium upon the Sacrament or trouble the penitent, falls under the seal of the confessional.

The Lateran Council, IV. c. 21, says: "But let the confessor take absolute care that he does not in any way betray the sinner by word, sign, or any other means whatsoever." We must distinguish between a direct and an indirect violation of the seal of the confessional. A direct violation would take place if a priest expressly revealed anything learnt from the penitent under the seal of the confessional; an indirect, if he spoke in such a way as to lead others to think his knowledge was derived from the confessional, or if he suffered knowledge thus derived to influence his external behavior. Nothing but the penitent's express permission can release a priest from the seal of the confessional, and this permission avails only if it is given quite voluntarily and is not extorted by feelings of respect (reverentia).

If these principles be applied to the case under discussion, we must bear in mind the fact that the confession is sacramental, even if the penitent cannot be absolved, because of his want of contrition and purpose of amendment. Even if the patient goes to confession only because it is part of the regular routine of the hospital, his confession is sacramental, unless he tells the priest plainly that he has no intention of making a real confession, but is pretending to do so, for the sake of appearances. The propounder of the question has not told us how the penitent received the confessor's proposal, and whether he agreed to it or not. If he did not expressly agree to it, there was an indirect violation of the seal of the confessional, because the priest, in taking down the card, allowed his outward behavior to be influenced by knowledge obtained from the man's confession. The nurse and the other patients would be very likely to think that the penitent had not received absolution, because he had not the proper disposition.

The suggestion that the penitent has only himself to blame if, owing to his bad disposition, he is not absolved, and this becomes known through the priest's actions, is inadmissible, since a confessor may not allow his outward behavior to be influenced by information obtained in a confession. If the penitent refuses, or does not expressly give, permission to the priest to remove the card, and to make the remark proposed to the nurse, the confessor can do nothing but forbid him to receive Holy Communion because he has not been absolved. The patient can then tell the nurse or the priest (not in confession) that he does not intend to communicate, or he may purposely take some food, so as to make it impossible for him to do so. If, however, he will not consent to do anything of the kind, in spite of the priest's persuasion, there is no help for it but for the priest to leave him to his fate and to give him Holy Communion on the following day.

If the penitent agrees to what the priest proposes and does so quite voluntarily (this is a very important point), there is no violation of the seal of the confessional in the priest's action, but the nurse and other patients might very easily suspect one, since he alone takes action and gives the explanation of it. In this way odium would be brought upon the Sacrament, and on this account this line of conduct seems inadmissible in the case in question. The priest can do nothing, therefore, but ask the patient to refuse Communion, and to declare immediately after his confession that he is not going to communicate the next morning. He must not, however, after the confession is finished, ask the sick man whether he intends to communicate, in order by means of this question to elicit the desired declaration, for this would involve a violation of the seal of the confessional; unless indeed the patient agrees to his asking the question so as to have an opportunity of making the declaration. If the patient himself says that he is not going to receive Communion, there is less reason to fear arousing suspicio fracti sigilli. If the confessor is in the habit of asking the hospital patients whether they wish to receive Communion, he may put the question out of confession, and as the chaplain who raised the discussion is liable often to encounter difficulties such as he has described, I should advise him henceforth to ask every patient after, and not during his confession, some question regarding his Communion.—Dr. A. Goepfert.