Priest Talks About Confession

[Issa87]

There is a priest at my parish, who can be very passionate and inspiring when he does his homily. He is very charismatic in personality and seems to be well liked. However, I am in the middle of listening to an old Catholic Answers radio show on How to do Confession, and the priest on the radio show says that he teaches his deacons that I assume are going for the priesthood that when they talk about confession to others, it should be about how they feel about confession and not in a way that makes it seem they actually do confession. -I think he means so that people feel comfortable knowing that what they confess won’t leave confession after they have confessed their sins. That alarmed me, because this passionate priest can at times talk about certain things that happened in confession. I mean he will say, “During confession this one person…” Now, I don’t believe he has ever said a sin that was confessed, but he still seems to be drawing a very fine line. What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Ophelia23]

Personally, I don’t think that mentioning something that happened in the confessional is inherently wrong. In setting you are describing, the priest is mentioning something entirely out of the context of confession and with no reference to who made the confession, when it was made, if was even made at your parish, etc. I don’t believe this is breaking the seal of confession.

 

[Theophorus]

There is a priest at my parish, who can be very passionate and inspiring when he does his homily. He is very charismatic in personality and seems to be well liked. However, I am in the middle of listening to an old Catholic Answers radio show on How to do Confession, and the priest on the radio show says that he teaches his deacons that I assume are going for the priesthood that when they talk about confession to others, it should be about how they feel about confession and not in a way that makes it seem they actually do confession. -I think he means so that people feel comfortable knowing that what they confess won’t leave confession after they have confessed their sins. That alarmed me, because this passionate priest can at times talk about certain things that happened in confession. I mean he will say, “During confession this one person…” Now, I don’t believe he has ever said a sin that was confessed, but he still seems to be drawing a very fine line. What are your thoughts on this?

As long as the priest gives no information which can be used to identify the penitent he can mention, in general, things from confession. He can never identify the penitent on pain of excommunication.