Seal of confidentiality, not in Confessional

[Elizabeth502]

Thanks to the priests here for your clarification.

 

[DeepeningFaith]

I believe that there are some laws in some states that protect spiritual direction just like psychologist - patient and doctor/patient confidentiality laws are enforced. Except when intending to harm self or others, it can’t even be brought up in court. I believe this had to do with Protestant denominations that do not have Confession that wanted some of the same protections under the law.

 

[Elizabeth502]

and thank you also to Padrej for your thorough reply. Let me say that I have only gone to spiritual directors for extremely personal stuff – things I would most likely not share with even a life-long lay confidante. Mostly it’s been about prayer, naturally, but the conditions for prayer and the journey in that can spill over into states of grace, one’s relationship with God with respect to honesty, behavior, decisions. I’m clear about what doesn’t belong in those discussions, which would be social or psychological concerns that should be addressed with secular professionals.

That said, I would never enter into a spiritual direction relationship without intuiting that the director assumes confidentiality as the default principle, without even having to have that formally expressed at moments in time during discussions. In the two previous directors I’ve gone to (both priests), it would never have occurred to me that they would want to divulge my private information to others, as there was no occasion to. I can’t imagine them having any motivation to share it with others; if I thought that an explicit statement needed to be made, they would be off my list of potential directors. Secondly, if I myself were to bring it up explicitly with them, I think they might have found it insulting, actually. And I wouldn’t have blamed them for that. They were men of impeccable integrity. Any other category is not worth going to for direction, i.m.o. I expect to give honesty, and I expect to get honesty. Otherwise, why bother?
(JMO)

[Editing to add: I am clear on the difference between professional confidentiality and The Seal. Still, I would expect that any director of mine would need an extreme reason to break professional confidentiality. Prayer life? Why would that ordinarily be of interest to others, or be a pressing need to divulge?]

 

[ancailindeas]

If the spiritual director is a priest, then most likely he’s also the confessor. The Seal of Confession only applies to the actual Sacrament–however remember that the “seal” of the internal forum applies to spiritual direction and the director is still bound by a very high level of confidentiality. In the scenario you present, this would depend upon the relationship existing between the director and the directee. If those conversations often “change” (I keep wanting to write “morph” but that sounds odd) into outright confessions, then the Seal of confession would apply–especially if it does indeed become a confession.

Allow me to be a little more concrete. Let’s say that one has a relationship where the directee often begins by saying “I don’t know if this is a sin but…” and that conversation usually leads to an outright confession in the sense of the penitent saying “the sins I just mentioned a moment ago…” In that case, the seal would certainly apply because the entire spiritual session is one long extended confession.

In any case, the obligation to keep secrecy of the “internal forum” would apply–no question about it, regardless of what’s said or the circumstances.

The obligation to keep secrecy of the internal forum in either confession or spiritual direction is still absolute. The main difference is that the penalty for breaking the seal of confession is much greater–because the crime of violating it is greater. The other difference is that the spiritual director is permitted to reveal to a religious superior the fact that one had been attending direction, but without revealing any of the content; for example, a spiritual director in a seminary is permitted to say to the rector “yes, he attended last week” but nothing more, while a confessor is not even permitted to say “yes, he went to confession last week.”

Bottom line: yes, spiritual direction occurs in the internal forum and the secrecy of it cannot be violated.