Seal of Confession - are there any statistics about how often it has been broken

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Yes because you are encouraging him to gossip, And no priest would do that anyway. ACcidents happen, but every priest I’ve worked for or known takes the seal of confession VERY SERIOUSLY.
Who would have the nerve to actually ask one, anyway?
 
Our 73 year old priest took his microphone into the men’s room one Sunday morning. The entire congregation was roaring with laughter. I don’t think he ever knew why.
 
Once you leave it’s over. If you want to talk more, you can make an appointment for spiritual direction.

Another example:
Once I was in confession and the priest was the older brother of a young man I had taught in Catholic School. We exchanged pleasantries and greetings before we started, and I mentioned that his brother was the finest religion student I ever had in class, a joy to teach. Beaming he said to me " Well, I so appreciate your kind words about Patrick, but because of the seal of confession I cna’t pass it on to him or my mother, but God bless you for telling me." 😊
 
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Did you bring that compliment up to him in a different way at a different time after and outside of the confessional?

And how is that related to confession anyway?
 
He’s a friend. He said hi how are you Clare? ANd I said HI, btw, how is Patrick he was my favorite student!"
End of story, begin confession. The priests are human and they do talk to their friends, Sheesh.

No, he heard me the first time.
 
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Ok fine, I admit the priests I know well also talk to me about unrelated things in Confession. Like they wanna talk about it so they won’t have to bring it up again anymore. HAHA
 
Wiggum would be excommunicated. There’s no seal because there’s no priest. But wiggum couldn’t use the information in court since he procured it through fradulent means and the rules of evidence prevent that
 
I promise you, at least a dozen of the people who overheard did report it to the Bishop. That is part of being a Catholic, complaining to the Bishop.
 
TheLittleLady said:
I promise you, at least a dozen of the people who overheard did report it to the Bishop. That is part of being a Catholic, complaining to the Bishop.
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Maybe in your neighborhood, but in some places people (regardless of religious affiliation) don’t snitch. Keeping things “in house” has a lot to be said for it.
 
Indeed. It’s quite an effective system. The bishop (or a helper reads) these letters and then passes them to the pastors in question with a post-it note that says “FYI.” That way, these pastors knows who’s out to get him. No parish could function properly without such Intel.
 
TheLittleLady said:
I promise you, at least a dozen of the people who overheard did report it to the Bishop. That is part of being a Catholic, complaining to the Bishop.
Click to expand...
LOL…so true…I once heard from a member here who worked at the diocese that many letters of complaint were simply filed in the “circular file” under the desk without making their way to the Bishop, who has more lofty issues to deal with.
 
I had to ask my parish priest once what he had said to me during confession because it didn’t make sense to me. He couldn’t remember what I had confess or what he had said to me. He just remembered that I had been to confession (face to face) recently.
 
SacredHeartBassist said:
Wiggum would be excommunicated. There’s no seal because there’s no priest. But wiggum couldn’t use the information in court since he procured it through fradulent means and the rules of evidence prevent that
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I think the evidence would likely be excluded because the penitent believed that the seal of the confessional existed, and because we have a societal interest in protecting the priest-penitent relationship.

Police often put informants into jails to gather evidence, and that evidence, though collected “fraudulently” can be admitted because there is no such privilege in the relationship between two jailhouse buddies.
 
Why do any cops (or judges or lawyers or bureaucrats…) ever break the law or ignore civil rights? They did it to get evidence they hoped to use in court.
 
This was not a violation of the seal. I suspected as much within the first line of the article, but the priest in question says as much about halfway through. The killer told this to the priest outside of confession. Such conversations, while requiring discretion and confidentiality, are not like the sacrament. The sacramental seal is inviolable. There are no circumstances that allow for either a direct or an indirect violation of the sacramental seal.

However, when offering some type of spiritual counsel to someone outside of the sacrament, such conversations are treated the same as speaking with a counselor, for instance. They will always tell you that the conversation is confidential until you reveal to them that you are intending to harm yourself or another.

In this case, the man told the priest what he did outside of confession. The fact that he (likely) later confessed to the same is of no consequence. He, of his own free will, revealed it outside of the confessional. The priest did the right thing.

The headline is misleading, slanderous to the priest, and scandalous to the faithful.
 
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