Do priests hearing confession have an obligation to report serious crimes?

[The_Second_Stone]

Attorney client privilege in California is as strong for confession of past crimes. Future crimes must be turned in. There was a case a year or two ago where a lawyer had heard a confession from his client where another man was serving a life sentence for the crime. Only many years after the client died had he been allowed by the client to tell.

[williambaskerville]

@Bricker

Interestingly, there is a sin which a priest may not, by law, absolve, although even then there’s an out of sorts.

A priest may not absolve his own partner in a sin against the Sixth Commandment… unless there is the grave danger of death.

That exemption intrigues me. Do you have any insight into the rationale behind it?

[Mk_VII]

The plot premise of Hitchcock’s I Confess turns on this inviolability of the confessional.

[Bricker]

@williambaskerville

That exemption intrigues me. Do you have any insight into the rationale behind it?

I imagine it’s to guard against what would otherwise be a temptation for a priest to ease his way into an affair by assuring his partner that even if they did commit adultery, he could absolve her of the sin.