Does using something in Confession from an earlier Confession break the Seal?

[DavidFilmer]

Most of us know must never acknowledge or discuss anything he learned in Confession, even to the penitent. If the penitent brings something up, the priest must disavow all knowledge.

But what if it is within the context of a subsequent Confession? If the person says, “At my last Confession, I told you about such-and-such, and you told me this-and-that.” Suppose the person had misheard or misconstrued what Father had actually said - is the priest allowed to correct the misunderstanding?

Obviously he could not do so outside of the Confessional, but what about within the bounds of Confession?

I realize the priest could probably get around having to acknowledge the previous Confession with a bit of fancy footwork (“If you had said something like that, I think that I would have said…”), but I am asking if the priest would break the Seal if he acknowledged the prior Confession.

 

[JimG]

I think a priest would be better equipped to answer this, but my own thoughts are that the priest, without ever disclosing anything from the prior confession, is entitled to take the penitent’s description of the prior confession at his word, and respond to that. I think a priest would be unwilling to reveal anything of his own knowledge of a prior confession, even to the penitent in a subsequent confession. (I don’t think, for one thing, that he could be absolutely certain that he and the penitent had in mind the same confession.)

Actually, as a matter of practicality, I think he would be utterly clueless about the contents of that prior confession. “Hmm, that’s been about 150 confessions I’ve heard since then, I have no idea what I might have said.”

 

[FrStevenJones]

I would want to keep the subject focused on the current confession. If they want to discuss a hypothetical past confession that is up to the penitent, but I would not acknowledge anything, as a priest, from a past confession. It would not be reliable to try to remember who said what to me on any past confession, and I would not be comfortable discussing it, because of the seal.