Secrecy of the Confessional

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May a priest disclose a person’s confession of a crime if an innocent person is being wrongly prosecuted (or was wrongly convicted) for the same crime? May he do it even without the confessors consent?
 
Legacy said:
May a priest disclose a person’s confession of a crime if an innocent person is being wrongly prosecuted (or was wrongly convicted) for the same crime? May he do it even without the confessors consent?
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No, the priest may not.

Alfred Hitchcock’s “I Confess” was about this exact situation. The wrongly prosecuted person in that case was the priest himself, who was framed for murder by his penitent, who had confessed the murder to the priest.
 
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The answer to your questions is no. Also, please note the terminology involved:

The confessor is the priest who hears confessions.
The penitent is the one who confesses his or her sins.
 
If it’s a serious crime, a priest can refuse absolution until the individual has confessed to the police.
 
And also advise the penitent that allowing another to be wrongly convicted would in itself be a grave sin.
 
Incorrect. That would still be a violation of the seal if the priest compelled the penitent to make his sins public as a condition of absolution.

-Fr ACEGC
 
So in actual fact…a person who has confessed to murder could ask for absolution and walk free…while an innocent party who was convicted of the crime would be executed
 
I would imagine that anyone whose conscience moved them to seek confession and absolution for murder would be well enough formed in conscience not to allow such an injustice to continue to exist. Put another way, consider it from two possible scenarios:
  1. Murderer is truly contrite, and confesses what he has done, which is a sin against justice. Of his own volition, and not compelled by the confessor, he turns himself in and helps to exonerate the one who was falsely accused.
  2. Murderer is not truly contrite and is happy to let someone be executed in his place. How likely is it that he’ll go to confession for that? If you are possessed of such unjust tendencies that you would murder someone and then allow someone else to be executed for it, how on earth would it ever occur to you to go to confession, but then not make things right? It just doesn’t follow. This person, if they did go to confession, would very likely not be properly disposed to receive absolution validly, particularly as they would be obviously unrepentant if they would allow someone else to be executed for them. I think if someone confessed that to me, I would treat that the same way I would someone who confesses to contraceptive behavior without an intention to stop it. I would strongly encourage them to stop, and if they refuse, I would withhold absolution. The unrepentant murderer should not receive absolution.
All in all, it’s important to remember that no one commits moral acts in a vacuum or in an abstract. We’re a lot more complex than that, and our motivations and guilt and virtues and vices all bear on how we do anything. That’s why hypothetical situations are virtually useless. What you describe–a murderer who would go to confession while also allowing an innocent to go to the death chamber for him–is not an impossibility, but it is extremely unlikely.

-Fr ACEGC
 
This is frequently cited as fact, but is completely incorrect. The priest may not make absolution conditional upon revealing one’s sins to another.
 
No a priest cannot disclose anything. The seal is sacred and cannot be violated no matter what.
 
Hmmm. I wonder about this because our pastor will often mention things like “I spoke to someone in confession who hasn’t been to reconciliation in 20 plus years. Thanks be to God, now that person has been reconciled with the Church”. Is that okay for our pastor to disclose? He says things like this in the homily fairly often.
 
Of course, there are some people who have contempt for God’s Justice and seek to abuse the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Someone who wants forgiveness without contrition must be refused absolution.
 
Yes, priests are permitted to speak in such generalities because the penitent cannot be identified.
 
Can a priest disclose a person’s confession if [insert your scenario of choice here]?

The answer is always no! There are no exceptions.

The seal of the confession is inviolate. Period.

As Fr Edward George says it makes no sense that someone would be so troubled in their conscience to go to confession and allow a miscarriage of justice, i.e. someone else punished for their crime, to happen.
 
Keller bothered to confess it at first, then became more calculating when he was afraid. That’s pretty believable, I think.
 
It is a great film. I did have to get past Monty Clift with his notorious and tortured private life playing the ultimate “Father What-a-waste”. He does pretty well though.
 
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