Seal of confession broken?

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Bentwistle

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So for this question I’m just going to refer to the priest as Father. I want to start by saying I have great respect for Father. He has shown true love for Christ and the Eucharist. That being said years ago I confessed to looking at porn. For my penance he told me to put an internet filter on my computer. Well the computer was my family’s computer so I had to ask my father to install it. Recently however I have heard that a priest cannot give as a penance something that reveals the nature of the sin, and that doing so would break the seal of confession. Wouldn’t this count as an illicit penance. Also since breaking the seal means automatic excommunication(unless I’m mistaken). Would the confessions he’s heard from me since then still be valid.
 
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Was the priest made aware that installing this software would require you to involve your parents/another person?
 
I really can’t remember for sure this was over ten years ago. Also if I remember correctly, my dad knew about my sin before I went to confession.
 
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Did you tell your Dad explicitly
“hey Dad, can you install this filter Father X told me to install as penance for my sin?”
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Priests take the seal very seriously. It was ten years ago. I think it’s very likely that either a) the priest did not realize you would have to first reveal your sin to your father or b) he simply urged you to install the filter, rather than assign it as a penance. Perhaps your recollection is not clear or you misunderstood at the time.
 
Hmm

As @twf said maybe your understanding or memory is bad.

I would talk to your priest about it. I would hate to give you advice and then get censored because you have some scruples about something that happened ten years ago.
 
Bentwistle said:
this was over ten years ago.
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In which case, probably best to move on and not give it too much thought.
Bentwistle said:
Also if I remember correctly, my dad knew about my sin before I went to confession.
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And here, further evidence that the priest did nothing wrong; he can’t breach the dam you’ve already ruptured.

Had the priest known the details of your home computer situation, the priest likely would have advised you differently.
 
Did you tell your father “Dad, can you please install an internet filter on the house computer because “Father” has imposed that as a penance for me”?
Or did you say "Dad, I think it would be a good idea to install an internet filter on the home computer because with all the filth that is freely available on the internet the temptation would be avoided.
Porno is like a drug, it acts in the same way. It is so like a drug since the brain eventually needs more of it to feel satisfied in a downward spiral.
Whichever way it happened I doubt the priest intention was for you to disclose your penance to your father. So one should presume that all the confessions were and are valid.
Priests do not take the confession seal lightly and many have made the supreme sacrifice and have been killed because of that.
 
I am not even sure that the part about installing a filter was a penance. It sounds more like advice as to how to avoid committing further sins.
 
Agree with others.

As you say your father already knew about your sin before you went to confession, then your asking your father to install an internet filter on the family computer after you’d been to confession and instructed to do so, means nothing wrong occurred.

We are free to reveal our sins to whomever we like.

Your father was already aware of your sin, so even though the software filter was either given to you as counsel or part of your penance during your Confession - either way, doing as Father instructed did not cause you to reveal your confessed sin and betray yourself to your parent - as your dad already knew before you went to confession.

Did it occur to the priest that it was a family/shared computer or perhaps he assumed (as was common 10yrs ago), that it was your own computer?

If you had told Father during this confession that it was a shared family computer and your parent did not know of your sin, yet still this counsel/penance was given you, then I could see there being an issue here, with this penance/counsel.

The confession on your part would be valid assuming you had -
  1. contrition,
  2. confessed all mortal sins that you’d committed since the last good confession before this particular one and which at that confession you had remembered,
  3. had a firm purpose of amendment and
  4. acceptance of penance given,
  5. and you did not deliberately withhold any mortal sin, then your confession was valid .
And assuming all the above points applied to each of your confessions since that time , then they too are valid too.
 
Short answer no. A priest can’t require you to reveal your sin - although an unwillingness to seek help in some cases may indicate a lack of contrition. Suggesting or recommending that you install an internet filter doesn’t require you to reveal the sin if the priest wasn’t aware that you needed to ask your father to install it - there could, after all, be many reasons why you may wish a filter installed - how you explain it is really a matter for you.
 
If you could re-wind time, I would have said “Father, I do not have a personal computer. I share one with my family and I will have to ask permission to install such a filter” and the priest would have given you a different penance.

As you cannot re-wind time, the priest was not aware you would need to reveal your sin, so, he did not intentionally require you to break the seal.
 
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