Seal of Confession

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Shea96

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If a priest, without revealing anything, acts upon something he hears in confession, is he violating the Seal?

Ex: He hears a confession of a young, teenage girl whom he recognizes and knows. She confesses to considering suicide and that she has researched mixing pills, alcohol, etc. for the quickest and least painful way. A few weeks later he is having casual conversation with the girl’s parents and purposely segues into the topic of teen suicide rates rising, peer pressure, symptoms to watch for etc., as sort of a, “hey, it’s sad about what is happening among teens these days” kind of manner. Has he then violated the seal?
 
Shea96 said:
If a priest, without revealing anything, acts upon something he hears in confession, is he violating the Seal?

Ex: He hears a confession of a young, teenage girl whom he recognizes and knows. She confesses to considering suicide and that she has researched mixing pills, alcohol, etc. for the quickest and least painful way. A few weeks later he is having casual conversation with the girl’s parents and purposely segues into the topic of teen suicide rates rising, peer pressure, symptoms to watch for etc., as sort of a, “hey, it’s sad about what is happening among teens these days” kind of manner. Has he then violated the seal?
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Yes, he has.

A confessor cannot act outside the confessional upon anything he hears in the confessional.
 
Shea96 said:
If a priest, without revealing anything, acts upon something he hears in confession, is he violating the Seal?

Ex: He hears a confession of a young, teenage girl whom he recognizes and knows. She confesses to considering suicide and that she has researched mixing pills, alcohol, etc. for the quickest and least painful way. A few weeks later he is having casual conversation with the girl’s parents and purposely segues into the topic of teen suicide rates rising, peer pressure, symptoms to watch for etc., as sort of a, “hey, it’s sad about what is happening among teens these days” kind of manner. Has he then violated the seal?
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Yuppers, 'fraid he has.

It happens.
 
Yes.

There are ways that sins confessed can be “revealed,” but not in that manner. For example, if Father is giving a priests’ retreat in South Africa and talks about how a girl said she was considering suicide in a confession he heard one time (let’s say they were in Guam), he is not violating the seal.

The in-between is more complex (viz., what exactly does “to the detriment of the penitent” actually mean, etc.). But avoiding the scandal of making someone even come close to thinking the seal has been broken (even if it were not) is a HUGE deal.
 
Just as well, information that is not actually a sin confessed would not come under the seal. If I mention that I was sinfully angry about the local high school football team losing the championship, Father doesn’t have to pretend he doesn’t know if someone asks him if he heard about the game. Now, he would be a fool to let it out that he heard it during a confession and would be better off avoiding saying he knew. If someone asks was so and so (who confessed to him) upset about it, he is bound to avoid it as best as possible and then, it would seem to me, is free to say he doesn’t know. It is a broad mental reservation that is effected by the nature of the reception of the information… people generally know that priests can’t talk about what they hear in confession.

The commission of acts based on such information is much more delicate. Say Father hears that this person in the box with him has been sneaking in the back door of the parish office and stealing from the petty funds box in the office’s closet. It’s not a sin confessed that the back door is left unlocked and the box is not in the safe, but to take care of those problems without revealing that sin takes some delicacy and even creativity.

This would not come under, it seems to me, an act of “external governance,” which would apply more to affairs dealing directly with that person. So if that person who was stealing is his parish secretary (who shouldn’t be confessing to him in the first place for exactly this reason), he can’t look for other reasons to fire her (let alone for “no reason” at all).

Pray for our priests. Many of them don’t even know the weight of their own office.
 
Shea96 said:
If a priest, without revealing anything, acts upon something he hears in confession, is he violating the Seal?

Ex: He hears a confession of a young, teenage girl whom he recognizes and knows. She confesses to considering suicide and that she has researched mixing pills, alcohol, etc. for the quickest and least painful way. A few weeks later he is having casual conversation with the girl’s parents and purposely segues into the topic of teen suicide rates rising, peer pressure, symptoms to watch for etc., as sort of a, “hey, it’s sad about what is happening among teens these days” kind of manner. Has he then violated the seal?
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I’d say yes, he has broken the seal, because he acted on something learned in the confessional.
 
Shea96 said:
If a priest, without revealing anything, acts upon something he hears in confession, is he violating the Seal?

Ex: He hears a confession of a young, teenage girl whom he recognizes and knows. She confesses to considering suicide and that she has researched mixing pills, alcohol, etc. for the quickest and least painful way. A few weeks later he is having casual conversation with the girl’s parents and purposely segues into the topic of teen suicide rates rising, peer pressure, symptoms to watch for etc., as sort of a, “hey, it’s sad about what is happening among teens these days” kind of manner. Has he then violated the seal?
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Do you need to talk to someone? That is a very specific scenario!
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
+1-800-273-8255
 
Shea96 said:
If a priest, without revealing anything, acts upon something he hears in confession, is he violating the Seal?

Ex: He hears a confession of a young, teenage girl whom he recognizes and knows. She confesses to considering suicide and that she has researched mixing pills, alcohol, etc. for the quickest and least painful way. A few weeks later he is having casual conversation with the girl’s parents and purposely segues into the topic of teen suicide rates rising, peer pressure, symptoms to watch for etc., as sort of a, “hey, it’s sad about what is happening among teens these days” kind of manner. Has he then violated the seal?
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Yes that would be a violation … The Priest can’t disclose what he heard in confession either directly or indirectly … In this case it would be an indirect breaking of the seal
 
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