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Seal of confession is absolute, even after penitent dies, officials say
cns ^ | November 13, 2014 | Cindy Wooden

Posted on 11/15/2014 1:56:37 PM PST by NYer

VATICAN CITY — The secrecy of a confession is maintained so seriously and completely by the Catholic Church that a priest would be excommunicated for revealing the contents of a confession when ordered to testify by a court or even after the penitent dies, Vatican officials said.

“No confessor can be dispensed from it, even if he would want to reveal the contents of a confession in order to prevent a serious and imminent evil,” said Msgr. Krzysztof Nykiel, regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a Vatican court dealing with matters of conscience.

The penitentiary sponsored a conference at the Vatican Nov. 12-13 on “the confessional seal and pastoral privacy.”

According to the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, conference participants heard that since the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 spelled out the penalties in church law for violating the secret of the confessional, “the discipline of the church in this matter has remained substantially the same,” with the exception of additional protections.

One of those additions, the newspaper said, was a 1988 church law explicitly stating that using an “electronic apparatus” to record, broadcast or otherwise share the contents of a confession also is an excommunicable offense.

Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, told conference participants it is important “to remove any suspicion” that the church’s commitment to the confessional seal “is designed to cover intrigues, plots or mysteries as people sometimes naively believe or, more easily, are led to believe.”

The seal, he said, is intended to protect the most intimate part of the human person, “that is, to safeguard the presence of God within each man.” The effect of the secret, he said, is that it also protects a person’s reputation and right to privacy.

The confessional seal, Msgr. Nykiel said, “is binding not only on the confessor, but also on the interpreter, if present, and anyone who in any way, even casually, comes to know of the sins confessed.”

The church, he said, takes the seal so seriously that it forbids, on the pain of excommunication, a priest from testifying in court about what he heard in the confessional, “even if the penitent requests” he testify.

Not even the death of the penitent can absolve the confessor from the obligation to maintain the secret, Msgr. Nykiel said.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Moral Issues; Theology
KEYWORDS: catholic; confession; penance; sealofconfession
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To: Arthur McGowan
She was preserved from Original Sin from the moment of her conception.

Total speculation!


201 posted on 11/23/2014 3:21:39 AM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Arthur McGowan
The Fathers of the Church teach that Mary’s sinlessness is evidenced in the fact that her body obeyed her will in conceiving the Son of God in her womb. She heard the word of God from the angel, and consented to conceive the Word in her womb.

CONSENTED?

Luke 1:38
And Mary said, "Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her.

202 posted on 11/23/2014 3:24:16 AM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Arthur McGowan
There is no reason to suppose that, in his preaching about what corrupts a man (what comes from outside vs. what comes from within), Jesus intended to settle any question concerning the sinlessness of Mary.

And your chosen religion SUPPOSES just the opposite!

203 posted on 11/23/2014 3:25:32 AM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Arthur McGowan
There is no reason to suppose that, in his preaching about what corrupts a man (what comes from outside vs. what comes from within), Jesus intended to settle any question concerning the sinlessness of Mary.

Hello!

Jesus was addressing the state of ALL men and women.

Why do you 'suppose' that Mary would be left out?

204 posted on 11/23/2014 3:26:30 AM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Arthur McGowan
Is there any evidence that Paul foresaw that this particular verse would be exploited 1500 years later to “prove” that Mary was a sinner?

Sigh.

1. You guys TEACH that Mary NEVER had sexual intercourse with Joseph.

2. The bible states:
The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. . . 1 Corinthians 7:4-5

3. Thus; Mary was a SINNER!

205 posted on 11/23/2014 3:31:52 AM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Arthur McGowan
What basis is there for holding that each individual verse of Scripture may be used to prove points that its author was not discussing, and can be leitimately used to prove points, without reference to its context, without reference to its author’s immediate purpose, and without reference to its audience?

I would have LOVED to see where your tongue was, as you typed this!!!

206 posted on 11/23/2014 3:32:51 AM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

I’ll be sure to move to the left lane as you come off...”your ramp”! :)


207 posted on 11/23/2014 4:20:10 AM PST by mdmathis6
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To: Arthur McGowan; Elsie

“The Fathers of the Church teach that Mary’s sinlessness is evidenced in the fact that her body obeyed her will in conceiving the Son of God in her womb. She heard the word of God from the angel, and consented to conceive the Word in her womb. Being the New Eve, without sin, she enjoyed a freedom and a mind-body integrity lacking in those weakened by Original Sin”

The church fathers weren’t even reading their own compiled scriptures for as Gabriel said to Mary:Luke 1:35 And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.

Lots of folks of the Bible have “consented” to do God’s will...Moses, Elijah...ect but that didn’t make them any less sinners nor was it “evidence that they were sinless from birth. Now God in his grace forgave them because as the Bible says in Habbakuk 2:4 and amplified again in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38 “The righteous shall live by his faith!” Now the Bible also says” To as many as believed gave he the power to become the children of God” Guess what! Mary believed and not only became a child of God, cleansed of her unrighteousness, she birthed the actual Son of God. The righteousness of Christ was imputed to her as though she had never sinned. Yet that also happens to all who become Christians...he drops our “sins into the sea of forgetfulness and remembers them no more”.

Christ would still have to die and rise again but as God is timeless, so was Mary’s salvation sealed from the founding of the world..as was any other Christian’s!

Mary trusted God and “lived by her faith”. That was what saved her. If you have any scriptural evidence that she was this “new eve” sinless from her conception, then I want to see it... chapter and verse!


208 posted on 11/23/2014 4:45:46 AM PST by mdmathis6
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To: Elsie

As usual, a wisecrack, but nothing relevant.


209 posted on 11/23/2014 7:48:01 AM PST by Arthur McGowan
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To: Arthur McGowan
Yeah... Sure...
 What basis is there for holding that each individual verse of Scripture may be used to prove points that its author was not discussing,
and can be leitimately used to prove points, 
without reference to its context, 
without reference to its author’s immediate purpose, 
and without reference to its audience?

Surely you are NIOT talking about Mary's assumption; right?

210 posted on 11/23/2014 11:07:41 AM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Arthur McGowan
As usual, a wisecrack, but nothing relevant.

As usual, skipping over a relevant reply (#205) to jabber on about something.

211 posted on 11/23/2014 11:08:47 AM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

Great argument, provided you ignore everything the GOSPELS have to say about the betrothal and marriage of Joseph and Mary.

You are intellectually dishonest. You have an ideological position, and you will twist Scripture any which way in order to score cheap points for your ideology.

There isn’t a scintilla of a reason to believe that any of the Scripture passages you have cited was intended to answer questions about Mary. You abuse these Scriptures when you pretend that they DO answer theological questions about Mary.


212 posted on 11/23/2014 11:20:00 AM PST by Arthur McGowan
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To: Arthur McGowan
Great argument, provided you ignore everything the GOSPELS have to say about the betrothal and marriage of Joseph and Mary.

So they DID have sex?

WOW!


213 posted on 11/23/2014 5:35:37 PM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Arthur McGowan
You have an ideological position, and you will twist Scripture any which way in order to score cheap points for your ideology.

Where on Earth did you EVER imagine that I am a Catholic?

214 posted on 11/23/2014 5:36:42 PM PST by Elsie ( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Arthur McGowan

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.


215 posted on 11/23/2014 7:27:33 PM PST by Religion Moderator
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To: NYer; Elsie; Greetings_Puny_Humans; Gamecock; Alex Murphy; redleghunter; Springfield Reformer; ...
According to the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, conference participants heard that since the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 spelled out the penalties in church law for violating the secret of the confessional, “the discipline of the church in this matter has remained substantially the same,” with the exception of additional protections.

It also forbids

No cleric may pronounce a sentence of death, or execute such a sentence, or be present at its execution

"No subdeacon, deacon, or priest shall practice that part of surgery involving burning and cutting." (CANON 18; http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.asp)

216 posted on 11/24/2014 6:11:32 AM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: Arthur McGowan; Elsie
If I had been his confessor, I would have made a public repudiation of his public sins—support for abortion and other social evils—a condition of absolution.

I just saw this thread, but want to say that your problem is that you were not his priest, and impenitent Ted even wrote to the pope and who wrote back, thanking him for his prayers and without any known word of censure. And as,

"the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock... the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors." - VEHEMENTER NOS, an Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906:

then you are to do what RCs tell us to do, that of looking to Roman leadership for what the truth, which Scripture teaches it manifest by what one does. (Ja. 2:18) And which overall count and treat even prosodomy proabortion public figures as members in life and in death.

Those (such as SSPX types) who interpret what the church teaches differently than they do are somewhat akin to Protestants in principal.

217 posted on 11/24/2014 11:17:35 AM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: daniel1212

The Pope wasn’t hearing Ted’s confession and wasn’t called upon to give or deny Ted absolution. Ted wrote the Pope a letter for no discernible reason, and the Pope wrote back an inoffensive letter. Which was then read over the grave by Cardinal McCarrick as though it carried some sort of meaning.

Kennedy died pro-abortion, with no sign of repentance.


218 posted on 11/24/2014 11:26:57 AM PST by Arthur McGowan
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To: Arthur McGowan
The Pope wasn’t hearing Ted’s confession and wasn’t called upon to give or deny Ted absolution. Ted wrote the Pope a letter for no discernible reason, and the Pope wrote back an inoffensive letter. Frankly, that's lame. You think "The Pope wasn’t hearing Ted’s confession" excuses the lack of censure while he had time to express appreciation for this dead man's prayers, etc. You think the only place for rebuke is when hearing confession? Its no wonder Teddy expressed not contrite confession.

Rome gave him masses at his own house, and treated him as a son of the church, and what one does constitutes the evidence of what one really believes, so why should he think he really needed repentance, any more than his RC supporters do? Rome shows what she really believes by treating them as accepted members in life and in death, despite the interpretation of others .

219 posted on 11/24/2014 2:54:20 PM PST by daniel1212 (Come to the Lord Jesus as a contrite damned+destitute sinner, trust Him to save you, then live 4 Him)
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To: daniel1212

Kennedy wrote to the Pope in a last desperate bid to get approval for his decades-long shameful career of screaming for the blood of babies. I’m sure the Pope didn’t want to seem harsh to a dying man. He said he would pray that Kennedy would receive the grace of complete surrender to the will of God. Taken seriously, that would entail public repentance.

Cardinal McCarrick read the Pope’s letter at the graveside as though it constituted some sort of Papal approbation for Kennedy.

We need a sea-change in the hierarchy. It’s long past time they were more concerned about the babies being butchered than the delicate feelings of Kennedys and Cuomos, Pelosi, Biden, Kerry, etc., etc.

Three hundred years from now, the hierarchy will be apologizing for JPII, Benedict, Francis, Wuerl, O’Malley, Dolan, Gomez, et al., for their passivity in the face of the pro-aborts.


220 posted on 11/24/2014 2:54:35 PM PST by Arthur McGowan
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