Breaking the seal of confession, exceptions?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JamesV
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

JamesV

Guest
I recently began working on a book (historic fiction) and there are a few references to church practices that I would like to ensure are correct. I am not Catholic, so please excuse any ignorance that may be present.

I found another post on this forum which states that a priest is not permitted to break the seal of confession even after the death of the penitent. My question is, can an exception be made if the penitent requests that the priest do just that?

My reason for asking is that my story (which takes place during the mid 14th century) involves a bishop, who is a close friend of the main character’s family hearing the deathbed confession of a man and being asked to pass along information to his son after his death as the son is not able to be present to receive the information himself.
 
So for the sake of accuracy in the story, it seems that it would be best for the penitent to make his confession and then make the request AFTER absolution has been granted so he (the bishop) is not obligated to protect the information (which is a key component of the story).

Interesting how the penitent seeks absolution, and the seal of confession is absolute. Thank you for the clarification.
 
Thanks again for the clarification…

Unfortunately SOME aspects of the story, as they pertain to the church, may not be 100% accurate, but I’d at least like for there to be an aura of plausibility about it.
 
If your character breaks the seal of confession in your story, he should expect a lot of blowback from the Faithful in the 14th Century.
 
I’m trying to avoid blatant violations of canon law (not sure if that’s the proper term) and stray no further than “minor inaccuracies”.

As a literary acknowledgement of the seal of confession, I’m thinking about deliberately not including any dialog on the part of the penitent.

The priest (or bishop, haven’t really refined the character sufficiently at this point) is a pious character, so I don’t want him to do anything that would warrant his excommunication.
 
JamesV said:
Unfortunately SOME aspects of the story, as they pertain to the church, may not be 100% accurate, but I’d at least like for there to be an aura of plausibility about it.
Click to expand...
Thank you for trying to make your story accurate with regards to our beliefs.
 
JamesV said:
I’m trying to avoid blatant violations of canon law (not sure if that’s the proper term) and stray no further than “minor inaccuracies”.
Click to expand...
Your characters can disobey canon law, but you should just be expected that it would not be looked highly upon by the other character in the story- back in those days. The confessional was pretty much sacrosanct- even is today- but I think even more so during the time period. I don’t know if the story is an historical “fact” or not, but the story of the St. Nepomuk, the martyr of the confessional was very well received by the common people, whether it was actually historical, or just a story itself.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I have no intentions of having all of the primary characters being “perfect catholics”. The one character I’d like to see “get it right” is the priest. On the other end of the spectrum I plan to have a character who thinks God’s greatest creations are women & wine. The nature of their relationship is something like:

“Father, how often do you pray?”
“That you have sons that are just as annoying to you as you are to me? Usually twice a day”
 
Since the story is one of historic fiction, I think it’s important to maintain an aura of plausibility about it. For example:

Jesus rode a donkey with blue eyes into Jerusalem
Jesus rode a unicorn into Jerusalem

Which one is plausible…the animal being a donkey with blue eyes, or it being a unicorn?

I get irritated when I see uniforms in movies that are horribly wrong (in part because I actually know that it’s wrong). I assumed that many Catholics might feel the same way when it comes to the portrayal of the church.
 
Your story will be better if you do the research.

I am related to a published author, one of his stories drives me crazy because he fell down on the research (really EASY research).

Your reader will feel the difference when you have done the legwork.
 
I wonder what the odds are of a local priest being able/willing to sit down with me one day and answer some of my questions so I can ensure accuracy…the original question in this thread has already been answered, but I keep coming up with new ones, most recently regarding relics.
 
what about them? and I would say most parish priests would be open to that… email or call your local parish and see if you could.
 
JamesV said:
I wonder what the odds are of a local priest being able/willing to sit down with me one day and answer some of my questions so I can ensure accuracy…the original question in this thread has already been answered, but I keep coming up with new ones, most recently regarding relics.
Click to expand...
Depending on where you live, you might be able to find a priest who has some time on his hands.

Or you could try calling your local Catholic diocese and see if they can direct you to a priest, deacon or lay theologian who might be willing to help you.

Good luck and God bless
 
I think if a penitent says to a priest: “I give you permission, after my confession, to recall it, and to tell my son that…” it would be ok. You can get some ideas by reading the relevant canon law and/or canon law blogs. Plenty come up on Google.
 
I graduated from a Catholic high school…I wonder why I never thought ask there 😛
 
I’ve opted to “work around that issue”…should I decide to include the scene where the confession takes place, I can write it from the perspective of someone who is too far away to hear the priest and the penitent whispering.

Another option is for the penitent to give the priest a letter who leaves it at the penitent’s tomb when he knows the intended recipient will visit. I would think that if a priest is given a sealed letter, even during a confession, the contents would be exempt as that remains an unknown to the priest and therefore, not a part of the confession itself.
 
JamesV said:
I wonder what the odds are of a local priest being able/willing to sit down with me one day and answer some of my questions so I can ensure accuracy…
Click to expand...
Just because someone is a parish priest doesn’t make them a expert on historic religious practices.

I would suggest reading literature written at the time period and place that your fiction is based, and getting a handle on the period. A priest can advise you what’s happening now, or perhaps up to 50 years ago when he was a kid, but wouldn’t be a first person source for English Catholics in Victorian times or 17th Century Lithuanian Catholics.
 
Fair enough…I’m not expecting any priest to be an expert on anything that predates his own lifetime.

I’d rather ask a question and hear “no, not to my knowledge” as an answer than to make a mistake and get it horribly wrong.
 
Your answer as the NORM is NO, no exceptions.

If the matter is a legal issue [murder for example] and the sinner releases the Bishop to share the information; the Bishop would just advise the sinner to turn themselves in.

I can’t foresee a condition that would cause the Bishop/priest to break the Seal of Slience.

Good luck with your book
 
I say this only half joking. We were in a parish once where there were confessions after Mass, which was unusual, I know. The pastor liked to walk around and talk to people after Mass before he went into the confessional. About half the time, he would accidentally leave his wireless mike from Mass on when he was talking to people and you could hear the conversation all over church. I was always afraid he would pop into the confessional and leave the thing on!
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top