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

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While this is not a deliberate breaking of the confidentiality, at the older of two Churches near me, the old style confessionals were very “leaky”. By that, I mean, when you were waiting your turn on one side, you could often hear what the other penitent and the Priest were saying. I often covered my ears because I felt wrong hearing any part of a confession—even muffled. That problem has been largely fixed—better soundproofing and I think only one penitent enters at a time instead one on either side of the Priest.
 
buc_fan33 said:
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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Thank you. I hadn’t gotten around to reading the article, so had not commented, but based on this, what a terrible slander! And misleadingly scandalous, indeed! It would discourage anyone who had sins that were highly scandalous or legally punishable from confessing to that priest, perhaps to most/any priests, for fear that they would be the next headline. That may not provoke much sympathy from some people depending on the crime, but it needn’t be a violent or injurious crime, just something the would-be penitent can imagine a priest, at his own discretion, may think should be divulged to somebody. Thus such false implications as this article evidently gives are horribly damaging.
 
FiveLinden said:
Is there any information about how many (or few) cases are reported? … Are there any documented cases in history?
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There is information and documentation but nobody on the street would be privy to any of this.

Dan
 
all baptized people are under the jurisdiction of the pope
 
SacredHeartBassist said:
all baptized people are under the jurisdiction of the pope
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No determination has ever been made by canonists as to whether Presbylutheran churches, like the 1st Church of Springfield, have a valid baptism or not. The only time they had a baptism, when Flanders took the Simpson children to a local lake, it really didn’t look that valid to me.
 
Yes, but Homer interrupted the ceremony, so we don’t know if it would have been Trinitarian baptism

So many questions…so many unanswered questions…
 
The issue of the seal of confession is one of canon law, and non-Catholics are not under canon law.
 
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