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.
All pardon for sins ultimately comes from Christ’s finished work on Calvary, but how is this pardon received by individuals? Did Christ leave us any means within the Church to take away sin? The Bible says he gave us two means.
Baptism was given to take away the sin inherited from Adam (original sin) and any sins we personally committed before baptism—sins we personally commit are called actual sins, because they come from our own acts. Thus on the day of Pentecost, Peter told the crowds, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38), and when Paul was baptized he was told, "And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name" (Acts 22:16). And so Peter later wrote, "Baptism . . . now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 3:21).
For sins committed after baptism, a different sacrament is needed. It has been called penance, confession, and reconciliation, each word emphasizing one of its.aspects. During his life, Christ forgave sins, as in the case of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11) and the woman who anointed his feet (Luke 7:48). He exercised this power in his human capacity as the Messiah or Son of man, telling us, "the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" (Matt. 9:6), which is why the Gospel writer himself explains that God "had given such authority to men" (Matt. 9:8).
Since he would not always be with the Church visibly, Christ gave this power to other men so the Church, which is the continuation of his presence throughout time (Matt. 28:20), would be able to offer forgiveness to future generations. He gave his power to the apostles, and it was a power that could be passed on to their successors and agents, since the apostles wouldn’t always be on earth either, but people would still be sinning.
God had sent Jesus to forgive sins, but after his resurrection Jesus told the apostles, "‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’" (John 20:21–23). (This is one of only two times we are told that God breathed on man, the other being in Genesis 2:7, when he made man a living soul. It emphasizes how important the establishment of the sacrament of penance was.)
Ping!
That seal of confession is man made. I always looked at it as "Just don't tell mom"....and not much more.
Still want to protect those priests do they?
The same rule applies to client communications with attorneys.
And why would anyone believe YOU after allegedly violating whatever it is the Catholic church deems sacred?
You've become no more trustworthy than the perp that you allege to have confessed to you.........
one of the reasond that the protestant revolution took place is that meny, many, many, found it too hard to be a Catholic....you must live up to HIGH standards or just go about being whatever you want and living up to maybe some standards....
Good for SCOTUS. Such a ruling does not apply in the courts where I practice.
I don’t understand the difference of a priest giving absolution for sins and Yeshua dying on the Cross for them. Either Yeshua died for our sins or He didn’t and therefore the need for a priest to do that?
The protection is not protection of the priest but protection of the penitent or the believer seeking spiritual advice or direction. Your analogous confidential communications with your pastor enjoy the same protection. You are welcome.
Some people pray and earnestly seek Him, others prefer their personal preconceptions and in doing so create their own version of Christ to fit their preconceptions. When they come to something that doesn't fit their preconceptions they murmer and leave to join others who agree with them because what they came across was a hard saying. That's the folks who will be hearing, "I never knew you" from Christ Himself even though they may once have been disciples because they abandoned Christ when He didn't fit their preconceptions.
Wearing preconception glasses blinds you to the Truth in Scripture. Faith, then understanding.
Actually I and other people with dignity and integrity would consider Sakajaweau honorable and worthwhile.
Unlike the pharasees who would let the innocent die in their pretend games of false piety.
Well, if you’ve sworn to “The Seal of the Confessional” in a vow to God, then it’s also a matter that impicates God. It is not just a human-to-human thing at that point.
Who are “those priests” of whom you speak?
Because, like the Baptism which itself ushers into the salvation of Christ, forgiveness takes a personal element to confer. The Church is about human agents acting in God’s name to carry out the purposes of the mission of the glory God.
And thus one cannot baptize themselves, another person has to say the words while pouring water over their heads. Similarly, one cannot be forgiven until a person with the authority to forgive sins in the name of Jesus says you are absolved.
Additionally, there are several places in scripture where Jesus specifically instructs the Apostles to forgive sins, and to have the authority in his name to do so.
Everyone must, of course, confess to God on heir own as well There's no substitute for that. But5Confession to a priest also helps a sinner like me to objective about what they've done, but requiring me to say it out loud: to hear myself say it in an objective way. It is a srtong antitdote aainst our tendency to let ourselves too easily off the hook, to deceive ourselves (and there are 10,000 different ways for our crooked little hearts to do that.)
This sacrament is rooted in the mission God gave to Christ in his capacity as the Son of man on earth to go and forgive sins (cf. Matt. 9:6). Thus, the crowds who witnessed this new power "glorified God, who hadgiven such authority to men" (Matt. 9:8; note the plural "men"). After his resurrection, Jesus passed on his mission to forgive sins to his ministers, telling them, "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. . . . Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:21–23).
That indisputably involves confession to a person who can "hear" your sins, otherwise this verse would be meaningless.
Just was wondering what this absolution of a priest meant ...
I can see about the Apostles doing that but was just wondering about priests absolving sin is all ....
He died for our sins, but also to open up the gates to heaven, which had been closed up to that point. His dying on the cross doesn’t mean that we can go forward and sin with the thought that we will be automatically forgiven. I don’t think that is what the Lord had in mind at all. You still have to repent for your sins, you just can’t preplan to sin and say “Oh, well, it’s OK because I’ll be forgiven.”
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