Chapter XIV. The Seal of Confession

By the seal of confession is understood the religious obligation to keep secret anything that is manifested in sacramental confession.

This obligation is imposed by the natural, the divine, and by positive ecclesiastical law. For the very fact that a penitent makes known his sins in secret to the confessor, with a view to obtaining absolution, lays upon the confessor the strictest obligation in justice and in charity not to violate the trust placed in him, much as a doctor or a lawyer when consulted about private matters is bound to observe secrecy with respect to what has been confided to him. Our Lord, who commanded all who fall into grave sin after Baptism to go to confession, could not have imposed such an obligation without requiring confessors to observe the strictest secrecy about what they hear in confession.

The Church, too, in the Fourth Council of Lateran (c. 21) forbids the confessor under grave penalties ever to betray by word, sign, or in any other way, what he has heard in sacramental confession. The Code punishes the confessor who presumes directly to violate the seal of confession with excommunication most specially reserved to the Holy See, if indirectly, with severe penalties. Others who violate the seal are to be severely punished (Can. 2369).

The obligation of the seal of confession differs from all other secrets in that it is never lawful under any circumstances to make known the least thing that has been manifested by a penitent in confession. If questioned about confessional matter, even in a court of justice, the priest must always answer that he knows nothing about it, as with perfect truth he may do, for what he knows as a confessor, he knows as the vicegerent of God, not as man. Not even to save his life or the lives of others may a priest violate the seal; like Fr. Henry Garnett, or St John of Nepomuk, he must be prepared to lay down his life rather than break the seal. He is never released from his obligation even by the death of the penitent, for people are unwilling that their secret sins should be mentioned even after their death.

A grave sacrilege would be committed by the direct manifestation of the least fault known from sacramental confession, but theologians allow that if the danger of confessional matter becoming known is very remote there may be only venial sin in indirect violation of the seal.

The person who hears the sacramental confession of another made with a view to obtaining absolution is primarily bound by the seal. Even if such a person were not a true priest, but merely represented himself to be one, he would, nevertheless, be bound by the obligation of the seal, for he could not violate the trust placed in him without such violation injuring the penitent and turning people away from the sacrament.

Not only the priest, but all others, who mediately or immediately come to know anything confessed to a priest with a view to absolution, are bound by the obligation of the seal. Superiors, then, who are asked for faculties to absolve from reserved cases, other confessors whose advice is asked about cases of conscience, anyone who by design or by accident overhears what is said in confession, are bound equally with the confessor... The obligation of the seal is imposed in favour of the penitent; it is the penitent’s secret, but he himself is not bound by it. It does not follow, however, that penitents may without let or hindrance talk to others about what the confessor has said or done to them in the confessional. They are at least bound by a natural obligation to reveal nothing which would tend in any way to injure or aggrieve the confessor. A confessor may speak with the penitent in the confessional about past confessions in as far as this is necessary for the present guidance and instruction of the penitent; but outside of confession he may not speak of confessional matter even to the penitent without the latter’s express leave freely given. There is a question discussed among theologians as to whether one who finds and reads the written confession of another violates the seal or is bound by it. It is better to distinguish various cases. If the circumstances in which the paper is found show that it has been used for the purpose of making a sacramental confession, as when it is found in the confessional, then the written confession is a sort of continuous confession, and knowledge derived from it comes under the seal. The same must be said of a letter written to an ecclesiastical superior for faculties to absolve from a reserved case. Otherwise, inasmuch as the writing down of one’s sins is not sacramental confession, knowledge gained from such a source without reference to actual confession does not seem to come under the seal.

Similarly, there is a difficulty about giving or refusing to the penitent an attestation that he has been to confession. If the penitent is unworthy of absolution and has not been absolved, but asks for the confessor’s attestation that he has been to confession, what is the latter to do ?¹ If the refusal of the attestation would in the circumstances show that. the penitent was not absolved, it is clear that it cannot be refused without a violation of the seal; in other circumstances the confessor will be free to give or refuse it.

¹ Can. 889.

Not only all sins mentioned in confession are the matter of the seal, but everything which was mentioned because it was thought to be a sin, and every circumstance which was mentioned in order to make a full confession and whose manifestation would tend to injure the penitent or make confession odious, comes under the seal. And so if one who is under a vow of chastity mentions the fact in order to make a full confession of a sin of impurity, the fact that the person is under vow is protected by the seal. In the same: way moral and social defects, such as scrupulosity and illegitimacy, come under the seal if they were made known with reference to confession, and if their manifestation would be to the injury of the penitent or make confession odious.

The virtues of a penitent are not the matter of the seal, nor does a confessor seem to violate his obligation if he merely says that he has heard the confession of such a one, unless on account of special circumstances it would cause injury to the penitent or make confession odious. Nor does a confessor whose watch was stolen by a penitent while making his confession break the seal by giving information of the theft to the police,

The seal may be broken directly or indirectly. It is broken directly when the confessor says that such a penitent told him such a sin in confession, It is broken indirectly when the confessor says or does anything or abstains from saying or doing anything from which others may come to the knowledge of confessional matter, or by which the penitent may be aggrieved or confession made odious. A confessor, then, indirectly violates the seal by changing his conduct to the detriment of the penitent in consequence of what he has heard in confession; by saying that a certain sin is rife in a place in which he has heard few confessions; by talking with another confessor about the sins of a penitent of both of them.

It used to be a common view among theologians that ecclesiastical superiors might use knowledge gained in hearing confessions for external government, provided that in such use there was no direct or indirect revelation of confessional matter. After the decree of Clement VIII, May 26, 1593, and that of the Holy Office, November 18, 1682, this opinion has become obsolete, and now it is universally held that no knowledge gained in the confessional can be used by the priest for external government if such use aggrieves the penitent, or makes the sacrament odious, or otherwise directly or indirectly violates the seal (Can. 890).

In spite of the strictness of the seal the confessor may make use of knowledge gained in the confessional to correct his own faults, to treat his penitents and others with more kindness, to learn by experience how better to fulfil his duties as confessor, how to preach more fruitfully, but always with prudence and without giving any just cause of complaint to his penitents. i.