Advice from priest during confession not to tell the truth

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Polak

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A while ago I attended a ‘men’s meeting’. I think it was called ‘St Joseph’s men’s club’. It’s a get together, only for men, with a priest, that happens every so often. I was curious to see what it looked like so I went.

During one of the discussions there, the priest mentioned that a man once told him during confession, that he had cheated on his wife.

The priest said he asked him if he loved his wife. The man replied that he did. The priest said he asked him if he was deeply sorry for what he did. The man said he was. The priest said he asked if this is something he had been doing for a while and if it was ongoing. The man said it was a one off mistake. The man apparently asked if he ought to tell his wife. The priest suggested that if he thinks telling her will break up the marriage, he should not tell her, but never do it again.

I think that it was okay for the priest to tell this story, as he did not mention any names of the people involved. I don’t think that would be breaking his vow, but I am not sure.

I find this interesting, because I assumed in a marriage you should not keep things from your spouse, and even if you have done something terrible, you should tell them the truth, but in this case the priest seems to have thought about it and decided that one mistake should not be allowed to destroy a marriage, and thought it would be better not to tell the wife to keep the marriage together.

Thoughts on this?
 
A spouse is not entitled to know everything, and in many cases should not know everything.

The confessional is for confessing sins. It does a lot of harm when someone “confesses” to another (such as their spouse) in order to assuage their own guilt.
 
Big difference between not disclosing your sins and lying.

Unless your wife asks point blank “have you ever committed adultery?” you are not lying.

Every priest I know gives the same advice. Do not burden your spouse with your sins.
 
I tend to agree that married couples should tell each other everything, and I expressed this to my husband many times, and I did tell him everything. I would imagine he told me everything too, as he was not good at concealing information anyway. I had a variety of reasons for feeling strongly about this, including my upbringing, some experiences with men I knew before I was married, and some experiences I saw happening to others in the workplace or public eye.

I discovered after I joined this forum that many people don’t agree with this approach and think more along the lines of the priest. I think some members of my own family were like that…don’t ask, don’t tell, they preferred it that way. Fine for them, I wanted something different.

The priest does not break a vow by speaking in generalities, and I would further presume he has heard this from many penitents, not just one guy in the course of his career.

So, I don’t see anything wrong with this overall, but if you have a wife at home who has made it clear she wants to know and she tells you everything too and you guys have that kind of understanding with each other from the get-go, then do what your understanding with your wife indicates, not what this priest said. My husband and I were in all probability not going to be breaking up over this sort of thing, and we didn’t break up, not before marriage, not after. We were till death do us part. But that’s just us.

If your spouse has made it clear she doesn’t want to know, then don’t burden her by telling her what she doesn’t want to know. I would not marry such a person, but that doesn’t make their preference bad or one that should not be respected.
 
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littlebird said:
So then it is ok to cheat on your wife just once ?

Free pass for all men to cheat on their wives just once ?
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Where did anyone say it was okay? If someone is in confession telling the priest their sin and repenting and promising never to do it again, it’s obviously not okay.
 
littlebird said:
So then it is ok to cheat on your wife just once ?

Free pass for all men to cheat on their wives just once ?
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Would you apply that logic to yourself for your own sins? Are you getting a free pass for the stuff you bring to Christ in the confessional?

When you and I come out of the confessional, we’ve been bought with the price of Christ’s blood. He paid our penalty, for all the sins of the world through all time. Let that sink in.
 
To tell the wife, unburdens the husband, and takes that burden and puts it on her shoulders. Him carrying it will be part of his penance for his actions. A fair penance for the weight of the matter.
 
Sorry, I must have misunderstood. I thought that the OP said that the priest said, that it is ok to not tell the wife it you think it could break up the marriage.

That means that it is ok to not tell the wife ?
Or that it is not ok to not tell the wife ?
 
The adultery is a sin, it’s not okay.

But as a general rule, a person is not required to tell their spouse (or anyone else) what they said in the confessional.
 
One of the risks of a priest telling a story like this is that people will try and figure out who he’s talking about. Granted, this is something I need reminding of as much as any other priest! That’s not saying he’s breaking the seal (or even coming close) but just that there are better ways of making the same point.

Still, for what it’s worth I’d say pretty much the same thing - it’s a matter for the husband, who obviously knows his wife and their mariage far better than the priest ever will, whether or not he tells his wife. I would however warn him that the truth sometimes has a way of coming out and this is something which the husband needs to consider in deciding whether or not to tell his wife.
 
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I heard same advice at some sermon few years ago. Then priest gave two reasons for not telling. Apart from risking destruction of marriage (or at least causing huge psychological problems for the spouse) some people fell the need to confess to the spouse for the relief and false notion of being honest, moreover what often follows is that proper reparation in everyday works of love is not done as “I confessed, I apologized and bought some flowers so I do not have to do anything more”.
 
Polak said:
During one of the discussions there, the priest mentioned that a man once told him during confession, that he had cheated on his wife.
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Does it really require a persons name for it to be breaking the seal of confession? I thought everything was under seal. Sorry, I find that disturbing even if it does skirt legal.
 
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InThePew said:
One of the risks of a priest telling a story like this is that people will try and figure out who he’s talking about.
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Seriously? Priests move around, they go on vacation, they hear the confessions of people who come to them because they are not the confessing person’s priest…

Why would anyone assume the story was about someone they knew?
 
Annie said:
Seriously? Priests move around, they go on vacation, they hear the confessions of people who come to them because they are not the confessing person’s priest…

Why would anyone assume the story was about someone they knew?
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You do know, do you, that InThePew is a priest??
 
Tis_Bearself said:
So, I don’t see anything wrong with this overall, but if you have a wife at home who has made it clear she wants to know and she tells you everything too and you guys have that kind of understanding with each other from the get-go, then do what your understanding with your wife indicates, not what this priest said. My husband and I were in all probability not going to be breaking up over this sort of thing, and we didn’t break up, not before marriage, not after. We were till death do us part. But that’s just us.

If your spouse has made it clear she doesn’t want to know, then don’t burden her by telling her what she doesn’t want to know. I would not marry such a person, but that doesn’t make their preference bad or one that should not be respected.
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I have to agree with this.

If this is something the husband and wife have talked about and the wronged party has expressed a preference in the past, then respect that preference. If he or she doesn’t want to be burdened with the knowledge of a spouse’s faithlessness–or doesn’t want to know in the circumstance that it is an isolated incident–then carry it alone. If he or she has given notice that concealing that violation of trust is an active lie rather than discretion that protects the victim, then I think that constitutes a standing expectation that you will tell or be considered both an adulterer and a liar if you don’t.
What if you don’t know? You have to make your best guess–not what you want, but what you feel it is most likely that your wronged spouse would want.

The confounding factor, of course, is that people can contract sexually-transmitted diseases by one act of adultery. I suppose it is possible to know that you didn’t contract anything, but a spouse does deserve to be informed before giving consent to be exposed to an STD. That is a case where protecting the wronged spouse against emotional harm could also be exposing that unknowing spouse to physical harm.
 
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Annie said:
Why would anyone assume the story was about someone they knew?
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Because every parish has the “busybodies”. People who call the office “Jane Smith is on the prayer list. What is wrong with her? I saw her at TJ Maxx yesterday and she looks just fine to me” or “I’ve sat near Joe Jones for the last 3 weeks at Sunday Mass. He never puts anything in the collection plate.”

Non-nosey people can’t fathom doing that, but, it happens.
 
Annie said:
Seriously? Priests move around, they go on vacation, they hear the confessions of people who come to them because they are not the confessing person’s priest…

Why would anyone assume the story was about someone they knew?
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Why even risk it?

As @InThePew said if you want to tell a group of men that a one-off occasion of infidelity need not necessarily be reported to your wife, there are alternative ways of introducing the topic than, ‘I once heard a man’s confession …’.
 
Annie said:
Seriously? Priests move around, they go on vacation, they hear the confessions of people who come to them because they are not the confessing person’s priest…

Why would anyone assume the story was about someone they knew?
Click to expand...
Suppose you knew someboy from your parish had cheated on their wife. Maybe they had been indiscrete about it or you had seen something that they didn’t know you had seen. Maybe that person didn’t know that you knew. Maybe some days after you see that person go to confession with a grave expression on their face. Then some days later the priest tells this story. You put two and two together. Maybe those incidents were all disconnected and you’re on a false scent. But now you believe something that is maybe untrue.

I think it would have been better for that priest to have used a different example, or said something like, suppose hypothetically somebody confessed to me …
 
That exact same scenario has been coming up as an example since I was a child and I’m in my 60s now. I would guess it has been used as an example long before I was born. I’m always shocked when people seem to be hearing it for the first time.

So I agree that if a priest says, “I once heard the confession of a man…” there will be busybodies and and people who try to figure out who it was. And perhaps the priest could have said, “Suppose a man…” or, “Suppose a woman…”

But getting back to the title of the thread…

Telling every thing we know is not a virtue. Truth is more than mere facts and sometimes mere facts can threaten the Truth.
 
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