This question arises after some friends and I watched the movie “
I confess”. . . . Surely this is not so rare that the Church hasn’t addressed it directly?
This doesn’t really answer my question.
Matthias,
It’s been a while since I visited this threat, but you are right. I suppose I should have been more direct and expanded the comment. The movie you referenced was recently discussed on the canon law board.
The law itself is considered clear enough to exclude this. It is established among most canonical authorities that there is such an absolute prohibition and such a weight to the seal of sacramental confession, that the canon is not understood to admit to exception. Canon 983 §1 (cited above) really means it when it says the sacramental seal is inviolable.
ByzCath commented on this quite correctly. There is an absolute prohibition against betrayal in “any other manner or for any reason” (alio quovis et quavis modo de causa aliquatenus ). The canon says it is “absolutely forbidden” (nefas est), i.e., criminal or abominable. As the rite of Penance (10d) says, “the confessor is bound by the obligation of preserving the seal of confession absolutely unbroken.”
As John Paul II said to the Apostolic Penitentiary (12 March 1994), Church law binds the confessor “in fact to total silence ‘usque ad sanguinis effusionem’” (even to the shedding of blood). Further, “This total confidentiality directly benefits the penitent. As a result, he incurs neither sin nor canonical penalty if he spontaneously and without harm to third parties reveals outside of confession what he has confessed.”
Yet, in the cases mentioned, the public revelation by the penitent could scarcely be viewed as spontaneous, but at the inducement of the confessor. It would present the “manner” of forcing the penitent to betray himself even for the “reason” of reporting a grave crime in the external forum. I, for one, do not know how to say that any more clearly.
I just do not see anything in the tradition of moral theology that foresees imposing self-incrimination as a condition of sacramental absolution. Unless there is doubt about the disposition of the penitent, absolution is not to be refused or deferred (c. 980). The presumption that a penitent is repentant would established by the fact that he or she has approached confession in the first place. There would have to be serious and positive reasons to overturn that presumption since as the Exegetical Commentary (MTF, 2004, at c. 980) notes, refusing absolution “is an extreme and odious manner.” In the case of doubt, the penitent would be invited to return after he had truly repented of the sin and absolution withheld.
I have been told by a priest that this does not break the seal because he (the priest) is not revealing anything.
I find this unpersuasive in the context of the gravity which both law and tradition attach to the seal of confession.
Certainly, the confessor may licitly invite, encourage, and urge within the internal forum, but here he places coercive action by means of spiritual jurisdiction which attempts intentionally to force disclosure by the penitent in the external forum. There could not be any other intention.
In the cases you present, the priest’s knowledge of the crime is acquired from confession and civil confession would be to the detriment of the penitent who would then face civil penalties (c. 984 §1 cited above). A confessor is prohibited completely from using such knowledge to the detriment of the penitent (ibid.). He would use such knowledge in the act of imposing such a condition for absolution in a case of doubt. Again, it would be his clear intention to bring a matter of the internal forum to the external forum. This is not the role of the confessor.
Parenthetically, one of the comments against the practice of penitents “writing down sins” for the communal celebration of confession was that of risk compromising the inviolable seal of sacramental confession (CDWDS, Circular Letter concerning the integrity of the Sacrament of Penance, 20 March 2000, Prot. N. 700/00/L). Presumably the confessor would have invited the penitents to do that.
Two final notes. First, the failure to perform penance after absolution (c. 981) is not considered to invalidate the absolution, although it is a serious obligation. Second, a willingness to undergo temporal punishment may or may not be attached to true contrition. One may rightly fear objective evils arising from temporal consequences even though being sincerely contrite and thus seek to avoid them. This is a reason why restitution may be occult.
(Note to self: Thou shalt not kill)
