The seal maintains the integrity of the sacrament of confession. If penitents knew the priest could repeat what he hears, not many people would ask for forgiveness their sins, especially serious ones.
The Church takes the seal of confession seriously. Canon law legislates that, "A confessor who directly violates the seal of confession incurs an automatic excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; if he does so only indirectly, he is to be punished in accord with the seriousness of the offense." This simply means that if a priest violates the seal, he is out. It's an automatic excommunication that only Rome can pardon. Depending on the gravity of the violation and whether or not it became public scandal, the priest could be prevented from returning to active ministry.
Having said all this, the media in Ireland for the last week has been reporting on a law proposed to legislators. The government wants to force priests to break the seal of confession when someone confesses pedophilia. Priests cannot do this. Even though it would be difficult to convict any priest of violating this secular law, some priests may struggle between following the law of the Church versus the law of the state. Actually, they must choose between the priesthood itself and the law of the state.
Pray for Irish legislators. This has never happened before in history, not even under the worse persecution of the Church during the French Revolution and other under anti-church governments of the 19th century.
Click on this brief article below to learn a bit more about this proposed law.
Government Proposal to Break Seal of Confession
***Please no anonymous comments. Thanks!***
When they are threatened with possible prison, they will give up their vows pretty quickly. They gave up their vows to rape young boys, they gave up their vows to lie about it, and most of the ones that were proven guilty lied all the way to jail because they thought they knew that giving up their vows was preferable to going to jail.
ReplyDeleteThe comment above shows the reason why the Irish government is attacking the seal of confession, it's backlash due to the Church's mismanagement of the sexual abuse of minors. Even though I don't clearly understand the link between priests breaking the seal of confession and molesting children, the comment speaks of the sentiment in Ireland today towards the Church. It is an understandable sentiment too.
ReplyDeleteI'd recommend reading my post "A Catholic Response," where I speak of the abuse scandal within the US Church.