Ask Father: Penalties for Violation of the Seal. Wherein Fr. Z and a Fictional SSPX Priest Explain the Situation.

An answer to a question occasioned by Fr Zed's post, Wherein Fr. Z Responds to a Lie.

From Fr Z's Blog

In the combox I was asked…

QUAERITUR:

Doesn't revealing the content and identity of a penitent incur grave penalties?

I respond thusly.

First, for a person – and priests are people, too – to incur a censure, he has to commit a sin.  So, he has to know that it is wrong and do it anyway.   When it comes to something like the Seal of Confession, a priest can’t plead innocent ignorance.  If he is ignorant he is culpably ignorant, because of his office in the Church.  Also, during his ordination he had to state explicitly that it was his intention to hear confessions.  Moreover, someone had to stand up and testify that he was properly trained.  Could any of those points of responsibility go awry?  Sure.  People can lie.  People can be truly stupid.  But it is highly unlikely that, even in the worst training or a really thick candidate, the priest doesn’t know what the Seal is and what violation of the Seal brings.

Let’s see some law.

Can. 983 §1. The sacramental Seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.

Can. 1388 §1. A confessor who directly violates the sacramental Seal incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; one who does so only indirectly is to be punished according to the gravity of the delict.

Priests may not reveal what they have learned during confession to anyone, even under the threat of their own death or that of others.

Punishment for breaking the Seal of the confessional depends the severity of the violation.

A priest who directly violates the Seal, that is, he explicitly connects a sin to a penitent by name, incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.   By the very fact that the priest did it, knowing it was wrong, he incurs the censure.  It will probably also be declared by proper authority if the case is revealed.  But even if it isn’t, the priest submit himself to judgment and seek a remedy, right away, through the Sacra Penitentieria Apostolica in Rome through the services of a confessor who knows the procedure.

What is direct violation?  Example, in the Diocese of Libville at Sing A New Faith Community Into Being Faith Community, Father Tad Flapmouth (biretta tip to Fr. Fox!) says, “On Saturday afternoon, in the confessional, Maggie MacGullicuddy confessed to me that she had slept with Frank O’Sullivan’s transgender husband, four times in the last week!  She says she was sorry, but was she?   First, all that 1950s stuff about sex and gender hangups!  Sheesh.  I gave her that thing… you know absolution…because she insisted, but I think she might just be scared of that old stuff about hell and isn’t reoriented in a hopeful and transformative vision of the reformed sacrament.”  That’s direct violation.

One who breaks the Seal indirectly gives sufficient information so that the sins and the penitent can be deduced.  For example, also in Libville at Engendering Togetherness Community of Welcome, Fr. “Just call me Bruce” Hugalot (recently moved from St. Idealia), says, “An elderly parishioner regularly knocks on the sacristy door about 8 minutes before Mass asks me to hear his confession.  His confession is always masturbation. Week after week, same confession always with the number of times.  Laundry list, right?  I have to wonder if this guy isn’t just stuck in some cultic or magical view, you know, like all that Counter-Reform stuff that is now obsolete.”  That’s indirect.  If you know where Hugalot says Mass… er um… presides at liturgy, and had noticed that a few minutes before Mass the same elderly guy goes to the sacristy, you would know his identity and what he confessed.

“But Father! But Father!” you PrayTell readers are dribbling, “It’s all about, you know… human brokenness and being present to each other in encounters of proximity that … that… can level out the outdated misconception of the dynamics of … of…. rigid legalism, and ritualism!  And YOU HATE VATICAN II!”

I really don’t.  And I respect Vatican II enough not to lie about it, and not to force it to say or mean something that it does not say or mean.

The Seal of Confession is so important that when a priest violates it, in addition to the application of the censure of excommunication, he can be dismissed from the clerical state.

So, yes, there are grave penalties for grave sins.  This is one of the gravest that a priest can commit.

Allow me to say that the violation of the Seal is incredibly rare.   Even the goofiest sort of lib priest (if he ever hears confessions at all) will usually not violate the Seal.  That’s how hard this is beaten into our thick skulls in seminary.

What would a lecture on Penance be like?

For example, at Our Lady Hammer of Heretics Seminary in the Diocese of Black Duck, Msgr. Zuhlsdorf and Fr. Rocco Firm of the SSPX’s St. Joseph Terror of Demons Chapel are running a practicum on the Sacrament of Penance.

Seminarian: “Msgr. Z, pray tell, afterward can we say to someone that…”

Msgr. Z: “KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!”

Seminarian: “But what about if….”

Msgr. Z: “KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!”

Seminarian: “But…”

Msgr. Z: “KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!”

Seminarian: “Okay, I get it.  I just want to know if…”

Msgr. Z (exiting): “Fr. Firm, can you take this while I get some coffee?”

Fr. Firm: “KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!”

Friends, do not let the incredibly rare occasion of a violation of the Seal, direct or indirect, or even the appearance of one, put you off of going to Confession.

And that fictional dialogue is actually based on my experience at the hell hole called St. Paul Seminary in the 80’s from a complete heretic priest who denied transubstantiation, threw me out of the seminary when he was acting rector, left the priesthood to shack up with a faculty member, etc. etc. etc.  When it came to the Seal, the answer was always the same: KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.

GO TO CONFESSION!