Is a penitent obliged to keep a confessor's advice secret

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stinkcat_14

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I just heard a talk where the speaker claimed that a penitent is obliged to keep an confessor’s advice secret. Is that true? I know that the seal of confession is binding on the priest (or anyone else who might hear it) but not on the penitent. So this claim struck me as odd. If anyone has additional knowledge, I would be interested to learn more.
 
This seems to come up from time to time. The seal of confession doesn’t bind the person confessing, just the priest and any other persons who happen to overhear the confession, like if they are standing outside the confessional.

The person confessing is free to reveal at any time what he said in the confessional and what the priest said. We actually have people coming onto CAF and doing this from time to time. So the speaker is wrong.

Source:

 
@Tis_Bearself has fully and correctly answered OP.

Only the Priest is bound by the seal.

I would go so far as to say that if the penitent himself wanted to, they could write down verbatim what was said in Confession and then have the NY Times publish it and there’d be no issue.
 
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Spyridon said:
@Tis_Bearself has fully and correctly answered OP.
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Yes, you are correct, the link addressed the issue I was interested in explicitly. Threads don’t usually end this quickly around here.
 
It isn’t against the Seal of Confession, but depending on what is being revealed, it might still be sinful if it reflects badly on the priest
 
Augustinian said:
but depending on what is being revealed, it might still be sinful if it reflects badly on the priest
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This is true, if you’re gossiping or trashing the priest then it could still be a sin.

On the other hand, if you need to report something the priest said to his superiors or to law enforcement, then you should go ahead and do that as you would have some responsibility to protect others if the priest might be acting in a harmful way.
 
That’s a whole different issue that has nothing to do with the penitent discussing what the priest’s advice was. There is a difference in sharing what we are told in the confessional, and critiquing it.
 
I do think that one ought to be careful and be charitable because it certainly an area where if I make an allegation about what a priest said in the confessional, he has no way to defend himself.
 
The only problem I can think of is that it can be imprudent. His advice was meant for you and you alone, given your particular set of circumstances. that advice might not apply to somebody else in different circumstances, even with the same sin. but this isn’t a matter of any sort of secrecy, only a matter of prudence.
 
Exactly. The penitent is not bound by any seal. He should be very careful in revealing his confessor’s advice, however, as the confessor cannot defend himself.
 
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