Security in/of confession

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sorry I cannot be more specific, but here goes;

You have had some really terrible thoughts, they are/were Just thoughts, you certainly would NOT act on them - but only you can know that for a fact after all, and in any case some people do not make that distinction. ( except in their OWN case of course ) So you go to your shrink and tell him all about it. Guess what ? shrink - patient conversations are NOT confidential ! And what you said is thereapon reported to the state, which increasingly makes fewer and fewer distinctions between crimes commited in fact, and what Orwell called “thought crime” or crimes committed in dreamland.
And need I point out that, increasingly, the state doesn’t send you to free therapy, the state bankrupts you and sends you to a torture chamber enstead.
I love and admire our lord, but I hope you understand that I have no desire what so ever to emulate him and be nailed to a cross, over what a REASONABLE adult ( many adults being, in contrast, as ruthless as they are pedantic ) would call " nothing ".
For that reason I am really afraid of unqualified, unrestrained , confession. Is it always confidential?
Does the church defy the state where this intrusion into privacy is concerned?
One more question, is it really a sin to keep quiet if the circumstance is that you fear for your life?
 
Any priest would gladly go to prison rather than break the seal of the confessional.
 
No priest can EVER break the seal of Confession for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER, even if it means saving a life. That’s how sacred the Sacrament is.
 
Many priests have died rather than state what someone told them in confession.
 
Have any priests ever broken the seal? Do we have record of it ever happening? I can’t think of a single time in 2000 years; not even any ex-priests.
 
Who’s he going to tell? The minute he says anything to anybody, he’s excommunicated from the Church.

But what you confess is totally up to you. You could leave out the details and just say “I sinned in my thoughts, x many times.”

We all have a dark side. I don’t think anyone on earth would be comfortable having their dream life opened up to public scrutiny.
 
But wouldn’t you have to be a bit more specific then saying that you “sinned in your thoughts”? :confused:

VC
 
Thanks CatholicNick.

The link you provided suggests confessing sins in “kind and number”. It seems to me that confessing that you “sinned in your thoughts” wouldn’t be specific enough, no?

VC
 
Verbum_Caro said:
Thanks CatholicNick.

The link you provided suggests confessing sins in “kind and number”. It seems to me that confessing that you “sinned in your thoughts” wouldn’t be specific enough, no?

VC
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I would say it is not specific enough to just state that. We must confess anything that changes the nature of the sins we commit. And such vagueness does not give the Priest an accurate picture of the state of our Souls
 
Verbum_Caro said:
But wouldn’t you have to be a bit more specific then saying that you “sinned in your thoughts”? :confused:

VC
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Well you would say what kind, of course. But I don’t think that the priest would necessarily need a blow-by-blow account of your specific fantasies. “I sinned in my thoughts about killing an acquaintance of mine who makes me feel angry” (for example) would probably be sufficient.
 
Well , the responses I have gotten are pretty clear-cut and emphatic. Thank you all for replieing. I had read , for example, that if a priest broke the seal for any reason he was automatically kicked out. BUT, you know, what you read in public bulletins as policy or as conventional wisdom is often in fact a far cry from the reality on the ground. I like to use this forum to ask sometimes elementary questions because I get to speak to real people who are present on the scene.
I have of course already come to the conclusion that the church of Rome is Christs true church, and is thus the only church for me. But you know America, the reality is sometimes very different from the Disney Land commercials.
Anyway, it is awesome and gratifieing to learn that there really does remain one institution in America that believes it has a moral imperative to say , " that is none of your buisiness " and sticks to it. My admiration for the Holy See just went through the roof. 🙂
 
imagine in the 2000 years past
how many priests heard how many connfessions
day-in-day-out
if the seal is broken, enemies of the church will pounce on it
and we will never stop hearing from it

it is very Sacred.

Tak
 
Chatter163 said:
I, for one, do not even understand the OP. :confused:
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The OP said that doctor-patient conversations were reported to the state, and that it might escape them that it was thoughts, and she might get in trouble.
And so she wanted to know whether there were instances of when the confessor did report things heard in the confessional, since she was afrid of confession of that account.
 
I have never heard of any instance in which any priest ever broke the seal of confession.

It’s not something I would worry about anyway. When I see the confession line on an ordinary day at our parish, I am sure the priest does not even remember what was confessed at the end of the day. And since we have anonymous confessionals, he does not know who confessed it either. So even if he were tortured to remember who and what, he could not.

If I ever were really worried about this in any particular instance, I would simply go to a parish where I didn’t know the priest and he didn’t know me, and go in a confessional or behind a screen. Simple. (In fact, in some cases I have gone to a neighboring parish for confession.)
 
I am a therapist, and I have to say that my conversations with clients are always confidential. I have never had to report to anyone any specific things clients have said. The only time I would have to say anything is if a client threatened themselves or another. This is the Tarasoff law where a person was killed by a client of a therapist who did not warn the victim. We are required to do that if we believe that the client is serious about harming another. So the possibility of having to reveal a confidential conversation is extremely rare.

Peace,
Linda
 
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