Article Nine. Concerning the Obligation of Preserving the Sacramental Seal.

406. Definition of the Seal. The sacramental seal, or seal of confession, is defined: the obligation of the confessor of preserving silence concerning all things known from sacramental confession, the revelation of which would render the sacrament odious. One must treat: a. of the obligation; b. of the subject; c. of the matter; d. of the violation of the seal.

a. The penitent is not bound to the sacramental seal concerning those things which he heard from the confessor, but he is bound to natural and committed secrecy, if their manifestation can bring harm to the confessor. This secrecy binds the penitent more strictly than any other secrecy, both because the confessor is bound by office to give counsels, and because he cannot defend himself if the secret has been unjustly injured. But since experience establishes that penitents willingly speak about those things which occurred in confession, the confessor ought to take care not to say or do anything which he would not want manifested to others.

b. The seal obliges the confessor only toward others, but not toward himself; hence a confessor is indeed worthy of reprehension, but does not act against the seal, who without sufficient reason thinks over within himself matters heard in confession; who casts his eyes from the confessional upon penitents in order to recognize them; who asks others concerning the name of his penitents as such, unless others from this manner of acting suspect some grave matter about the penitent.

g. This obligation is not ineptly called a seal: for just as letters whose object ought to remain hidden are closed and sealed with a seal, so the things said in confession are closed by this obligation and hidden from others.

¹ Schuler, Die Martyrer des Beichtsiegels (Wurzburg: Bucher, 1892). Kurtscheid, Das Beichtsiegel in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Freiburg: Herder, 1912).