How far does the seal of confession extend

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Hi - I am a lapsed catholic author writing a novel on the issue of clergy abuse. I have a question that no amount of googling has answered to date.
  1. If a priest first becomes aware of a crime (such as child abuse) by means other than a disclosure in confession - are they still bound/protected by the seal of the confessional from reporting a crime?
  2. If an offender becomes aware that the priest knows of their sins, can they then manipulate the situation by “confessing their sin” within the sanctity of confession to prevent the priest from disclosing?
  3. Eg. In the second scenario do the two sources of disclosure and knowledge become treated as one, once the matter is revealed in confession or is the inital discovery extra confession not covered by the seal of the confession?
Depending on the answer I’d like to explore this line in my book

thanks in anticipation of any clarification or responses I might receive
Kate
 
I’ll take a crack at it, but my answers are not authoritative.
katie61 said:
If a priest first becomes aware of a crime (such as child abuse) by means other than a disclosure in confession - are they still bound/protected by the seal of the confessional from reporting a crime?
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No, since as you said, this disclosure did not take place during confession.
katie61 said:
If an offender becomes aware that the priest knows of their sins, can they then manipulate the situation by “confessing their sin” within the sanctity of confession to prevent the priest from disclosing?
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No, since the priest found out about it outside of confession (assuming of course this initial discovery took place outside of confession).
katie61 said:
Eg. In the second scenario do the two sources of disclosure and knowledge become treated as one, once the matter is revealed in confession or is the inital discovery extra confession not covered by the seal of the confession?
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Could you please rephrase this question? I don’t understand what you’re asking here.
 
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  1. The seal of confession only applies when something is disclosed within the sacrament. If someone admits something to a priest outside of the sacrament, he can alert authorities of it.
  2. The priest could report the crime because they were made aware of it outside of the sacrament, only they can’t say anything about the confession itself.
  3. No. They are two different sources of knowledge.
 
This sounds like a question which might be better addressed to either a Canon lawyer or a professor of sacramental theology.
 
Hi Thanks so much for the prompt reply to my post. This is the answer I was hoping for (it makes my plotting task a good deal simpler and also creates scope for contrasting two different scenarios where the seal of confession does and does not come into play…

I think your simple and clear answer makes my obsificated logic in the third question apparent that it is redundant.
 
katie61 said:
Eg. In the second scenario do the two sources of disclosure and knowledge become treated as one, once the matter is revealed in confession or is the inital discovery extra confession not covered by the seal of the confession?
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No. They’re distinct. The “initial discovery” isn’t covered by the seal. In fact, one might imagine that the confessor, in the context of the sacrament, might advise the penitent that he was aware of the act prior to the penitent’s confession of it, and as a mandated reporter, the priest is required to report it (and either has, or is in the process of, actually reporting it). (Then, of course, we would imagine that the confessor would encourage the penitent to turn himself in.)

People have the idea that the confessional is just some big racket to allow folks to “get away with it”. It ain’t.

(Edited to add: Of course, I would imagine that the confessor would report only what he learned outside the confessional, and would not reveal anything that he learned within the sacrament.)

(Edited a second time to add:
katie61 said:
I think your simple and clear answer makes my obsificated logic in the third question apparent that it is redundant.
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Actually, it could raise an interesting plot point. What if the priest became aware of one aspect prior to the confession, and a separate aspect (or second incident) during confession? Then, he’d be required to report the former and required not to report the latter… 😉
 
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In many states, conversations between ordained clergy of any recognized religion and literally anyone else – if the communication was intended to be confidential – is privileged and not admissible as evidence. That’s what the law says, while the Church obviously holds the seal of confession to be absolute and unconditional even if the whole world would be saved by breaking it.

BUT… the confession is not sealed in certain circumstances. If the person confessing is not penitent, the seal does not apply (if they did not ask for absolution or refused it, they aren’t penitent). If they are threatening a future crime(s), the seal doesn’t apply. I am fairly certain about these things, but I’m also not a trained priest.
 
The seal of confession applies when the sacrament is being given. Someone who tells a priest such a sin outside of confession is not receiving the sacrament of reconciliation, is not confessing their sin, is not absolved of anything and so the seal does not apply and therefore the priest can report it.
 
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Searching1 said:
In many states, conversations between ordained clergy of any recognized religion and literally anyone else – if the communication was intended to be confidential – is privileged and not admissible as evidence. That’s what the law says, while the Church obviously holds the seal of confession to be absolute and unconditional even if the whole world would be saved by breaking it.

BUT… the confession is not sealed in certain circumstances. If the person confessing is not penitent, the seal does not apply (if they did not ask for absolution or refused it, they aren’t penitent). If they are threatening a future crime(s), the seal doesn’t apply. I am fairly certain about these things, but I’m also not a trained priest.
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The seal applies even if absolution is denied.
 
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Another thing that many Catholics are unaware of is the sanctity of the confessional extends to parishioners. Of course, the person confessing to a priest can say whatever they want about what happened in the confessional and the priest can not acknowledge it, however, if the laity are walking by the confessional and overhears the confession they too are obliged to keep the secrecy of the confessional and would NOT be able to reveal that information to another person NOT even in a court of law! IF a priest was to break the seal of the confessional he would be excommunicated from the church and the same would apply if the laity revealed what they overheard while an individual was in the confessional.
 
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Also, it is impossible to confess something that has not yet been done.

A penitent might say “I have been thinking of stealing my neighbor’s bike”. That would be a sin of envy, not the sin of theft.
 
  1. If a priest is told something outside the sacrament of confession he is not bound by the seal. If I went up to the priest after a weekday morning Mass and said Fr it was me who broke into the poor box and stole the money he would be able to report me to the police without breaking the seal of the confession.
  2. You cannot bind a priest with the seal of the confessional by confessing to him formally in the sacrament things you have told him otherwise. Of course, any further information or details you gave in confession which he did not previously know would be bound by the seal.
  3. No they do not become one. What you tell a priest outside of the confessional does not obligate him to maintain the seal. If you a person told a priest, other than in the sacrament of confession, he was abusing a child the priest would not be bound by the seal of the confession. Indeed, I believe he would be morally bound o report the crime.
 
A priest is only bound by what is said in confession (either a valid confession, or a sincere attempt to receive a valid confession). So if he knows of a crime from sources outside the confessional, he can only report what he knows from those extra-confessional sources.
 
As Saint Thomas Aquinas says it, what priest knows in confession he knows “as God knows it”, not as himself. If priest says “I don’t know” it should be automatically understood as “outside of seal of confession, I don’t know.” Even if situation arises where someone tries to report that priest actually did say something bad during confession, priest can NOT defend himself and deny it nor can he acknowledge it if it would in any way risk revealing sins of said person. However what priest knows outside confession he uses as human- if it is secret he should keep it, but he is not bound by seal of confession here, just by human morals. If someone wishes priest to be able to use his confession publicly he needs to repeat things he said outside confession- and even then priest can not say what happened during confession but only what happened outside it. If for example I lie to priest outside confession he would be obliged to pretend he doesn’t know I’m lying.

Just imagine priest during confession is different person than priest outside it and it’s easy to understand from that point on.
 
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