Chapter V. On Violation of a Secret

Here a secret is called whatever, either from its own nature or from a special contract, ought to be kept hidden. - A threefold secret is distinguished and is 1st. natural, if it is imposed by the very nature of the thing to be hidden, e.g., if you know something which you cannot manifest without grave injury to another either in estimation or in goods, etc.; 2nd. promised, if someone, hearing a secret from another or learning it by chance, promises that he will not reveal it; 3rd. committed, if someone manifests something to another and at the same time tacitly or expressly requires silence from him concerning it.

I say 1st. A natural secret in a grave matter obliges under grave matter, and indeed in justice, unless a just cause excuses. The reason is that from revelation of the secret harm follows to the neighbor, who has the right not to be injured without reasonable cause.

I say 2nd. A promised secret, besides the obligation of a natural secret, which by reason of the matter it can sometimes bring with it, by force of the promise alone obliges gravely or lightly according to the intention of the one promising; lightly, if the one promising binds himself only from fidelity, as often happens; gravely in grave matter, if he wished to oblige himself in justice.

I say 3rd. A committed or communicated secret, which is also called rigorous, obliges under grave matter in justice, and indeed more strictly than a merely natural secret and also than a promised one; because besides the natural obligation there also presses an obligation from an onerous contract expressly or tacitly undertaken. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 970. - Baller., note (a) and (b), p. 440.

Question 1. What are the just causes of manifesting any secret whatsoever, even if it is committed?

Response. They are 1st. the rightly presumed consent of him whose interest it is that the secret be hidden; 2nd. divulgation of the matter arising from elsewhere; 3rd. harm that will follow from the secret to the commonwealth, or to innocent private persons, or to the one entrusting it, or even to him to whom the secret is committed. I said, that will follow, because if it concerns harm already inflicted, a committed secret cannot licitly be revealed as long as the one causing harm is not himself bound to betray himself, although a natural or promised secret can, indeed ought, to be manifested to a judge legitimately interrogating, so that the harm already inflicted may be redressed. The reason for the difference is that the obligation which affects a natural or promised secret is essentially conditioned, and as it were supervenes upon the pre-existing obligation of responding to a judge legitimately interrogating. But if the matter concerns a committed secret, a judge or superior cannot abrogate the right of nature, which requires that it ought to be kept, unless the matter is already known by another way. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, nn. 970 and 971. - Baller., note (a), p. 441.

Question 2. Can you reveal a secret if you promised to keep it even with loss of life?

Response. Affirmatively, if the common good requires it, because then a promise of this kind is invalid by its own nature. But otherwise one must answer if it concerns your own simply grave harm, because you expressly renounced your right, and it is not illicit to permit yourself to incur grave harm for keeping a promise. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 971.

Question 3. Does he sin gravely who reveals a secret to one or another upright man under the same secret?

Response. Negatively, probably of itself; because in this case grave injury against another does not seem to be committed, unless nevertheless it is revealed to a person from whom the one entrusting the secret to you is rightly presumed to have especially wished it to be concealed. - I said, of itself; because in practice, on account of the circumstances of the secret, the revelation will easily become grave, namely when you suppose too lightly that the persons to whom you commit the received secret are so discreet that they will certainly keep it. - Cf. St. Alphonsus, n. 971.

Question 4. Does he sin gravely who opens or reads another's letters?

Response. Affirmatively, because by natural right and the right of nations there is present a grave obligation of preserving the secrets of letters inviolate; otherwise human commerce would be overthrown. Except, however, the following cases: 1st. if there is tacit or presumed consent of him who writes, or of him to whom the letters are sent; 2nd. if the letters are known or presumed to contain matters of slight moment; 3rd. if it is done from a just cause, e.g., for averting public or private harm, provided no more is read than is necessary for this end; 4th. if the letters are opened from levity or from some inadvertence. Cf. St. Alphonsus, de Peccatis, n. 70; and Hom. Ap., nn. 5 and 6.

Question 5. Can you ever use knowledge unjustly acquired for freeing yourself, for example?

Response. Affirmatively, in the case in which, if you had not had that information, you could, by your own right, in order to provide for yourself, have searched it out and inquired into the secret even by deceit; otherwise you cannot. Therefore this can be done 1st. when that possessor of the secret vexes you unjustly, since it is licit to repel force by force; 2nd. when he is held to reveal the secret, because then he does not have the right of retaining it; 3rd. when it is of interest to the commonwealth that it be manifested for the common safety. Yet you cannot use it on account of some good of yours resulting from the revelation, or some evil of your own to be avoided, nor on account of that evil for the sake of which you can reveal a justly acquired secret. But if that were permitted, a door and license would be opened of searching out, by right and wrong, the secrets of one's neighbor for our utility; letters would be intercepted and other frauds employed to the ruin of human commerce and public quiet. Such a person unjustly acquiring another's secret steals his good: nothing is more intimate to a man or more his own than the secret of the heart; it is a right belonging to him from intrinsic principles, which God protects by concealing it in such a way that not even angels penetrate the secrets of man. Against this right acts he who obtains a secret by fraud or deceit and communicates it to others. Hence there would be a violation of a most strict right if someone employed the new instrument which is commonly called a dictograph, against the peace of human society: e.g., while an advocate hears his clients, or such privileged persons receive most secret things, or officials communicate hidden things of government to one another. Thus Lugo, disp. 14, nn. 100 and following.