Chapter IV — On the seal of confession

I. QUESTION I. By what right are confessors bound to guard the secret of those things which they have heard in confession? ANSWER. By a threefold right — natural, divine, and ecclesiastical — as all teach. Against these three rights a violator would sin. This seal arises from sacramental confession alone, by which a penitent in good faith manifests his sins to a priest for the obtaining of absolution, although on account of the penitent's indisposition or a defect of the confessor's jurisdiction absolution be not imparted. If anyone should confess to one feigning himself a priest, that man would be obnoxious to the seal.

II. If anyone should feign a confession, and under the mask of confession provoke to base things, or affect a priest with injuries, or attempt some crime by the priest's ministry, no seal would arise hence. Similarly when something is communicated under the seal of confession, even if, the knees being bent, the Confiteor be said, no sacramental seal arises, but only a natural one. From confession alone therefore, ordained to the obtaining of absolution to be given at its own opportune time, does the sacramental seal arise.

III. QUESTION II. How grave is the guarding of the seal, and whether it be lawful in any case to violate it? ANSWER. Most grave is the guarding of this seal, imposed by a threefold right, as has been said. In no case whatsoever, whether private or public, is it lawful to open it, even if death were to be undergone, or the whole world were imperilled. The matter of this seal is the individual sins, whether mortal or venial, determinately manifested in confession. With the highest prudence and caution is this seal to be guarded.

IV. QUESTION III. Can a confessor speak of things heard in confession by the penitent's leave? ANSWER. It is certain that a penitent can impart the said leave to the confessor, since the seal is in favour of the penitent himself. Wherefore, just as a penitent can of himself manifest his own sins, so he can grant leave to another to do this. This leave of the penitent must nevertheless be free and express; nor does an interpretative or presumed one suffice. Sometimes a penitent is bound under grave fault to grant this leave, as for the averting of some grave evil threatening the commonwealth or another.

V. Whatsoever sins, even public ones, manifested in confession fall under the seal. Hence a confessor hearing the sins of someone condemned to death for thefts, homicides, blasphemies, heresies, and so forth, cannot reveal these crimes as heard in confession. If he knows them from elsewhere, he will be able, occasion being given, to speak as others do. Wherefore a parish priest can and ought to reject from communion his parishioner whom he knows to be a public usurer or concubinary, although for the avoiding of this the parishioner should confess to him.

VI. QUESTION IV. What ought a confessor to answer when asked whether he has heard the confession of a harlot, a concubine, and so forth? ANSWER. He ought to answer that he has heard her confession and has performed his office. What if a harlot should ask for a schedule or testimony of confession? Some deny that it is to be given. But this opinion is to me false. The confession was made, as is supposed. If the confessor should say that he had not absolved her, he would break the seal, as all confess. He who denies the schedule in fact says that he did not absolve her. Tell me: why is this schedule to be denied? Because the harlot was not absolved? If this reason held, there would be no seal save when absolution is imparted — which is a manifest error. The schedule therefore of the confession heard is to be given, because this is not a testimony of absolution.

VII. QUESTION V. Can a confessor say that in such a town, community, or college grave crimes are perpetrated, when he has heard them in confession? ANSWER. He would without doubt break the seal while he laid open grave crimes of such a town, city, or community. If nevertheless the city were ample and populous, I should not believe the seal violated. When therefore the town or city is small, then it is violated, because scandal arises, and it could easily be detected who perpetrated such enormous crimes. He who should reveal of a college or convent a crime heard in confession would break the seal, because he defames such an order. By keeping silence a confessor never sins. In speaking there is always danger. Let him therefore restrain his tongue.

VIII. Nor can a confessor speak with his own penitent concerning things heard in confession without his express leave. If the penitent himself of his own accord begin to speak, express leave is understood. Immediately after absolution given he can admonish, exhort, and correct the penitent, because the sacramental judgment still perseveres.

IX. A confessor cannot use knowledge had in confession for exterior government. Clement VIII in the year 1594 forbade Regulars to use the knowledge of confession for exterior rule. Which decree Urban VIII confirmed, constitution 16. Wherefore it is inferred: 1. That a confessor cannot abstain from the sacrifice, or flee, when he has learned in confession from some partner of a crime that snares are being prepared for him, or poison poured into the chalice, if the accomplices of the offence should conjecture that the crime had been revealed by one of the partners. 2. A confessor cannot deny the Eucharist, or the blessing of matrimony, to a penitent before one or another rightly demanding it, even if he denied him absolution. 3. He cannot interdict from sacred things a subject priest, or reject one canonically elected, on account of crimes detected in confession; nor avoid one excommunicated for the killing of a cleric manifested in confession.

X. A husband, his wife being unwilling, receives priesthood. In the article of death, hearing his wife's confession, he understands his marriage to be invalid and null. The feigned wife recovers. The debt is asked: ought the husband-priest to render it, since the feigned wife knows that he does not render it on account of the confession heard? That case is chimerical. If it should happen, the confessor would have to ask the faculty of conversing with her, if she should recover, and of rescinding the feigned marriage. What if she should refuse? She would not be to be absolved, as being indisposed, because prepared to live in concubinage. What if she should recover without absolution? These hypotheses are arbitrary figments. If the hypothesis should occur, recourse would have to be had to God, who never permits an innocent man to be tempted above that which he can. But I repeat that the case is chimerical.

XI. QUESTION VI. How ought a confessor to bear himself when he is questioned concerning things heard in confession? ANSWER. If a confessor be absolutely questioned, he can absolutely answer that he does not know, even with an oath added, because he is presumed not to be questioned as a confessor. What if a crafty questioner should ask whether he would lay open those things which he knows as a confessor? The confessor ought undauntedly to answer, and to reject the questioning as unworthy and the questioner as an iniquitous man. Very many other cases upon this seal are wont to be discussed; but because they are obvious and of no difficulty, I pass them over. A confessor with a severe and prudent custody of the tongue will resolve them all.

XII. QUESTION VII. Who are bound to this seal? ANSWER. Not only confessors, whether lawful or feigned, are bound, but also all interpreters whose help penitents use, that they may manifest their sins to a priest. Assistants also are subject to this seal, when without their presence the confession cannot be made, as it happens in a common shipwreck, in which those who hear, or by chance or by industry touch, the sin of those confessing sacramentally, are bound to preserve this seal; as also counsellors, to whom out of necessity the person of the penitent and the crime is manifested; and likewise superiors from whom the faculty for reserved cases is sought.