Talk:Seal of confession in the Catholic Church

Untitled

With respect to the United States, this article appears out-of-date - predating the statehood of Alaska! Also the term "Seal of the Confessional" is a term of religious law, not civil or criminal law (at least in the USA). I propose to transfer that material to a new page called something like Confessional Privilege (United States) and to preface it with the more relevant material, which would be statutory in nature. The historical and common-law material is interesting trivia, at least in the USA. Any thoughts? rewinn 03:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I seem to have stumbled on this page at roughly the same time and come to much the same conclusion. I think that we should:

1. Move this page to Confessional privilege (note capitalisation!) or some similar modern name
2. Be bold and edit the US bit (it is clearly out of date) with a link to the US article.
3. Post a request for WP:Peer review
4. Refine the categories
5. Make sure that there are some links from diverse related areas so that it gets noticed.

I think that the UK position is currently covered solely under the law of Public Interest Immunity but I will try to find time to look it up. Cutler 16:50, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, hang on! I've just found this: Priest-penitent privilege. I feel a merge coming on but we should be careful here. There is more to the "seal of the confessional" than the civil law aspects. Cutler 17:32, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

OK. I have updated the Priest-penitent privilege article. I am going to ship out all the legal stuff from this page onto Seal of the Confessional/temp. We can then make this a decent article while we think what to do with the rest of the stuff. Cutler 17:57, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Connection to priest abuse scandal?

I recall hearing on the BBC (forget which program) that since the 1960's, priests have been using this seal on child victims of sexual abuse to silence them on threat of excommunication, while the priests involved were punished much less harshly.

Can anyone find any corroboration with this? If true, this would be an important topic to add to this subject, perhaps in an 'abuse' section.

--66.192.106.72 16:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Your comment doesn't really make any sense. This article is about the Seal of the Confessional - it is about priests not repeating what is said to them by a penitent, not the other way around! Timothy Titus ^{Talk To TT} 09:22, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, the priest lied about the nature of the seal. For a priest to lie about church doctrine in such a manner is itself a sin. 2600:1003:B01E:CE9:BD89:856C:6CE5:8E9 (talk) 03:58, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Ireland

This BBC story suggests that the Irish government has said that "in future, priests would not be excused for withholding information about abuse even if it was given during confession". Might be worth noting by someone with enough knowledge to assess it. 81.158.1.158 (talk) 12:07, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

History

'Notably, neither this canon nor the law of the Decretum purports to enact for the first time the secrecy of confession.' The wording is unfortunate, but the intention of the writer is clear enough: Gratian's text is often described as a compilation, which implies that the individual article pre-dated Gratian.Pamour (talk) 09:04, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Abortion

At present (Year of Mercy) any confessor may absolve from the excommunication incurred by abortion, and in a couple of countries that is generally true, but even concerning the general state of affairs, I'm rather sure that it suffices to refer the case to the bishop, not, as the article suggests, the Holy See. (Coming to think of it, I'm not so sure about the heresy either; while it used to be reserved, the CIC of 1983 contains no such provision. Though probably if the case has gone public and judged by the CDF, the CDF would have to be referred to...)--2001:A61:20CA:7101:D17A:8B92:14FB:76E8 (talk) 00:07, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Canon law (Catholic Church) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:00, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Unsourced / failed verification

Hello, I have deleted some text which is unsourced and/or cited to sources that do not in any way support the assertions therein. Please do not restore it without repairing these problems. Thank you! 2600:8800:1880:188:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 05:52, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The deleted text has been described as "useful details", but to me those alleged details appeared wildly inaccurate. I welcome anyone who wishes to bolster those claims with reliable sources. Due to the extraordinary nature of the claims, however, impeccable reliability, and highly specific descriptions of the situations involved, will be necessary. Thanks. 2600:8800:1880:188:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 06:30, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

3 questions

First, if somebody confesses to a crime, such as child abuse, can the priest require the person to turn himself in to the authorities? I would think yes, that is a most suitable and salutary penance, but I have read elsewhere that too is considered a violation of the seal.

Second, this article says

Thomas gives two reasons for the seal's inviolability: the seal is divinely instituted and the seal prevents scandal

And why is it necessary to prevent scandal?

Third, a citation is needed for where it says that both John Paul II and Benedict XVI punished indirect violations with automatic excommunication. 2600:1003:B01E:CE9:BD89:856C:6CE5:8E9 (talk) 03:51, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

"Not to cause scandal?"

The opening paragraph ends with an odd bit of writing. I suggest it be changed to something more related to the topic, such as "not to publicize." Jasphetamine (talk) 11:09, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it should be changed, it's a term of art in the Catholic church although we do need better explanation of this somehow. Nil Einne (talk) 16:14, 9 September 2023 (UTC)