Can a priest ever reveal what is said to them in confession

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Izzy1

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I wanted to know if the priests can break their seal of confession under any particular circumstance or is everything that is said in confession a hundred percent private and never leaves the confessional?? Can a priest ask you to talk to them after confession if they find that u have a particular son which is not good for eg drugs or something like that ( ps I don’t do drugs )
 
Emphatic no. Under pain of grievous mortal sin and excommunication a priest may never break the seal of the Confessional, not even to save a life. There are priests who have died for this. There are even stories of priests who apostasized during the French Revolution but would not break the seal. It is absolutely sacred.
 
Canon Law goes through this issue explicitly:

Can. 983 §1. The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.

§2. The interpreter, if there is one, and all others who in any way have knowledge of sins from confession are also obliged to observe secrecy.

Can. 984 §1. A confessor is prohibited completely from using knowledge acquired from confession to the detriment of the penitent even when any danger of revelation is excluded.

§2. A person who has been placed in authority cannot use in any manner for external governance the knowledge about sins which he has received in confession at any time.

(http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P3G.HTM)
 
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Practically it means that a priest may not for any reason reveal what is said in Confession, not even if there was a life depending on it. It is so to have people seek repentance and forgiveness no matter what sins they carry, and without needing to fear the secular consequences of confessing them.
 
To be at peace, just ask Father. If you must know now, it is an absolute seal. Has been for 2,000 years. Why the doubt? Is something or someone keeping you from confessing? That is the far greater issue, as I see it.

As an aside, so what if the entire world knows about your sin? Look at the sin of the celebrities who still bask in the limelight. Yet, their joy is short-lived, as the world does not grant them eternal reward, or eternal justice.

Don’t stress. Confess!
 
This doesn’t seem to explicitly prevent a person from coincidentally talking to their priest about the same topic which came up in their confession.
The priest can’t stop you from ‘confessing’ stuff outside the seal of sacramental Confession.
 
If a person says something in the confessional that isn’t a (factual) mortal sin but is nonetheless grave, like the person is planning to kill someone and for some reason tells this to the priest during Confession, can’t the priest alert the potential victim?
 
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The priest can never reveal what was told him in confession, even if the person was planning on killing someone. The priest would be automatically excommunicated.
A priest once spoke to me about this exact situation-what if someone said he was going to murder someone? The priest said that he would try to get the person to talk about it with him after confession–then he could report him.
 
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mdgspencer said:
A priest once spoke to me about this exact situation-what if someone said he was going to murder someone? The priest said that he would try to get the person to talk about it with him after confession–then he could report him.
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Actually he can’t do that either, since the priest is forbidden to use anything he finds out in the confessional ‘to the detriment of the penitent’.
 
No priest can ever break the seal. The seal is completely sacred. A priest,interpreter or someone who accidentally hears the confession cannot break the seal. Even if someone confessed murder,a priest cannot break the seal. If a priest does break it he will be excommunicated.
 
This is NOT a discipline. What we might think about it is irrelevant. The seal of confession is just that an unbreakable seal.
 
Izzy1 said:
I wanted to know if the priests can break their seal of confession under any particular circumstance or is everything that is said in confession a hundred percent private and never leaves the confessional?? Can a priest ask you to talk to them after confession if they find that u have a particular son which is not good for eg drugs or something like that ( ps I don’t do drugs )
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The priest can’t break the seal of confession for any reason (under penalty of excommunication).

Neither can anyone else who overhears the confession either accidentally or deliberately.
 
Sbee0 said:
Neither can anyone else who overhears the confession either accidentally or deliberately.
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Speaking of which, there is a priest I know who speaks so loudly he can be heard up to the front row sometimes (the confessionals are all the way in the back). It takes most of my concentration to tune out what I am hearing, while I am sitting up front doing my penance.
 
Lion_IRC said:
This doesn’t seem to explicitly prevent a person from coincidentally talking to their priest about the same topic which came up in their confession.
The priest can’t stop you from ‘confessing’ stuff outside the seal of sacramental Confession.
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Which raises an interesting question.

I once had a private face to face talk with a priest I met on a pilgrimage. We just discussed this and that and whatever came into my mind and also chatted about some difficulties I was having and some things I regretted. I was never told this was supposed to be a confession but at the aend of it the priest gave me an absolution.

So is it a valid confession even if I don’t find out it was a confession until afterwards?
 
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FiveLinden said:
Actually he can’t do that either, since the priest is forbidden to use anything he finds out in the confessional ‘to the detriment of the penitent’.
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It’s not “to the detriment of the penitent” to try to get someone who is about to get themselves into a serious bad situation to come and talk to you outside the confessional. The priest is concerned not only for the potential victim but for the life and soul of the potential killer.
 
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