# Is there any legal prohibition against a priest revealing a confession? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 26, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800 "2016-10-26T19:36:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/21 "2016-10-27T05:54:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Let’s say this priest then reports the confession to the police I have a related question: what if the priest reports not just hearsay confession, but actual facts? Suppose the penitent told the priest where he hid the murder weapon. The police search the location and find the weapon with fingerprints. Is that admissable evidence in court? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/22 "2016-10-27T07:32:29Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > I have a related question: what if the priest reports not just hearsay confession, but actual facts? > Suppose the penitent told the priest where he hid the murder weapon. > > The police search the location and find the weapon with fingerprints. Is that admissable evidence in court? The police can give evidence of the search, the discovery of the weapon, the examination of the weapon, the discover of the fingerprints, the identification of the fingerprints. None of that would be hearsay or inadmissible. The weight of this evidence wouldn’t be greatly added to by the revelation that the police got the tip-off from a priest who told them he had himself got the information fro a penitent in the confessional, so it’s very unlikely that the state would seek to call the priest to give evidence about what was said to him. The question of the admissibility of the priest’s evidence as to what was said to him would therefore not arise. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/23 "2016-10-27T07:56:30Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > There are also such privileged communications between doctor-patient, covering all kinds of physical & mental health workers. **(Even your massage therapist – I’ve heard of cases where one such could not be forced to testify in a worker comp case).** Do you have a cite for the bolded part? ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/24 "2016-10-27T10:15:41Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > The police can give evidence of the search, the discovery of the weapon, the examination of the weapon, the discover of the fingerprints, the identification of the fingerprints. None of that would be hearsay or inadmissible. Are you sure that it would be admissible? Given that this evidence was obtained only from the priest’s information, and that it was privileged information, (with the privilege belonging to the confessent, not the priest), I’d think the defense lawyer would challenge the admissibility. And from my (non-lawyer) understanding of the ‘fruit of the poisoned tree’ theory, he would win – evidence obtained illegally is not admissible. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/25 "2016-10-27T10:19:28Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Do you have a cite for the bolded part? Not much of one. I recall it being told to me years ago by a lawyer whose firm sometimes did workers comp cases. Possibly googling would find info about the rules on this (though they probably vary a lot in each state). ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/26 "2016-10-27T11:18:32Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Are you sure that it would be admissible? > > Given that this evidence was obtained only from the priest’s information, and that it was privileged information, (with the privilege belonging to the confessent, not the priest), I’d think the defense lawyer would challenge the admissibility. And from my (non-lawyer) understanding of the ‘fruit of the poisoned tree’ theory, he would win – evidence obtained illegally is not admissible. Just because something is inadmissible doesn’t mean it was obtained illegally. The vast majority of information that is inadmissible was not obtained illegally. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/27 "2016-10-27T11:27:25Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > D’oh! Excited utterance!:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/28 "2016-10-27T11:47:20Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > I have a related question: what if the priest reports not just hearsay confession, but actual facts? > Suppose the penitent told the priest where he hid the murder weapon. > > The police search the location and find the weapon with fingerprints. Is that admissable evidence in court? While making room for a state with contrary laws, I can’t think of any generally-applicable provision that would exclude this evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/29 "2016-10-27T12:00:54Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > The justification for these is that society is better off if such intimate, personal communications are honest & truthful, and being able to force them to be revealed in Court would threaten that. For example, a patient might be hesitant to talk to his doctor about fear that he may be becoming dependent on prescription painkillers and ask for treatment, if the doctor could be forced to testify about that conversation. The Spanish Criminal Code includes “spontaneous confession” and “delivered himself” among the items which should produce a more lenient sentence. A criminal who went to a priest knowing that the priest can’t call the cops on him, and who was then convinced by the priest to deliver himself to the police, would still be counted as “delivered himself and confessed spontaneously”, and the priest could be called upon to testify in their favor: reporting relevant parts of the conversation to the police and court with the criminal’s permission does not break the secrecy of the confessional (anything else which was part of the same conversation is still covered by it). At lower levels, I’ve seen it work for small and not so small school stuff, or in work situations. Knowing there’s certain people that you can ask for advice without getting yourself in trouble for it can be an enormous relief. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/30 "2016-10-27T12:50:05Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Are you sure that it would be admissible? > > Given that this evidence was obtained only from the priest’s information, and that it was privileged information, (with the privilege belonging to the confessent, not the priest), I’d think the defense lawyer would challenge the admissibility. And from my (non-lawyer) understanding of the ‘fruit of the poisoned tree’ theory, he would win – evidence obtained illegally is not admissible. No, this isn’t quite the meaning of “poisoned tree.” The exclusion principle is crafted to deter police misconduct by removing the incentive to violate Constitutional guarantees. As an example, if the police in good faith rely upon a warrant that is ultimately shown to be flawed, the evidence derived therefrom is still admissible, no matter how “poisoned,” the original tree was. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/31 "2016-10-27T13:32:24Z")
If it’s OK to use privileged information to obtain a search warrant, why does the US Attorney’s manual recommend that police searching through privileged information bring in uninvolved investigators to determine which documents are OK to seize? Is the problem in this case that other documents aren’t covered by the warrant, not just that they’re privileged? > **[Search Warrants and the Attorney-Client Privilege](http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2009/03/search-warrants-and-attorney-client.html)** > > A recent case from Georgia illustrates how federal prosecutors deal with the task of preserving attorney-client privilege when a search warr... > [@](#): > > [w]hile every effort should be made to avoid viewing privileged material, the search may require limited review of arguably privileged material to ascertain whether the material is covered by the warrant. Therefore, to protect the . . . privilege and to ensure that the investigation is not compromised by exposure to privileged material . . ., a “privilege team” should be designated, consisting of agents and lawyers not involved in the underlying investigation. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/32 "2016-10-27T13:48:52Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > If it’s OK to use privileged information to obtain a search warrant, why does the US Attorney’s manual recommend that police searching through privileged information bring in uninvolved investigators to determine which documents are OK to seize? Is the problem in this case that other documents aren’t covered by the warrant, not just that they’re privileged? > > [CYB3RCRIM3: Search Warrants and the Attorney-Client Privilege](http://cyb3rcrim3.blogspot.com/2009/03/search-warrants-and-attorney-client.html) The attorney-client privilege is not co-extensive with the priest penitent privilege. Disclosure of information within the ambit of attorney client privilege can affect the accused’s right to a fair trial by revealing defense strategy, theories of the case, results of witness interviews, impeachment evidence against Commonwealth witnesses, and the like. The evidence uncovered by a search such as the one described above is potentially both direct conversations between attorney and client and attorney work product – that is, material generated by the attorney in furtherance of the defense of the client. In short – letting the prosecutor see that material impairs the defense strategy, regardless of whether the evidence is admissible at trial. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/33 "2016-10-27T14:57:07Z")
That makes sense, I thought they worked basically the same. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/34 "2016-10-27T15:40:20Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Look, if you don’t know what the heck you’re talking about, then in GQ wouldn’t it be better to not post your guesses as though they were fact? > > Hearsay is NOT "someone told me the defendant said this. > > If Bob says to you, “I wear size 7 hats,” and then you go into court and take the stand, and the party that called you to the stand wants to prove that Bob wears size 7 hats, and asks you, “What size hats did Bob tell you he wears?” THAT QUESTION ELICITS HEARSAY. > > It’s not third party. It’s a question about what Bob directly told you, and yet - gosh and golly! It’s still hearsay! > > Hearsay is an out of court statement that is offered in evidence IN court in an effort to prove the truth of the matter asserted in the statement. > > OK? Got it? > > It may be admissible under some exception to the hearsay rule. But it’s hearsay. It’s the freaking definition of hearsay. you know, you can correct someone without having to proceed to grind them into the dirt for being wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/35 "2016-10-27T15:44:42Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > you know, you can correct someone without having to proceed to grind them into the dirt for being wrong. Yeah, I got a bit unhinged there. I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/36 "2016-10-27T16:05:30Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t know what the law in Australia is, but my view is the opposite: I find it hard to believe that information provided in a confessional would NOT be afforded legal protection. It certainly would in the United States, in both federal court and every state court I’m aware of. I believe it differs from state to state in Australia. I think it would be fair to say that in light of the very serious abuses performed by the Catholic church in Australia which have been heavily in our media (Cardinal Pell etc) that the Australian public would mostly be in favour of priests being obliged to break the confessional when there is ongoing harm to an individual. Eg if a Priest who is sexually abusing children confesses to another priest and then continues to abuse. We’re also a remarkably irreligious country anyway and rather famously had an openly atheist Prime Minister is the 1980’s who is remembered rather fondly (Bob Hawke) I believe that counsellors / psychiatrists are legally required to break privilege in Australia in cases of ongoing harm and I see no rational reason why religious clergy should not have a similar obligation. Sorry but real world ongoing harm takes priority over your made up rules from the invisible sky father. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/37 "2016-10-27T16:30:58Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > OK, so where does this priest-penitent privilege come from? Client-lawyer makes sense, abrogating that cuts into the legal process and the pursuit of justice. Priest-penitent makes no sense other than being a particular society’s way of embracing part of a religion’s culture. It’s been suggested to me that the privilege simply acknowledges the practical reality of the situation – that abrogating the privilege would not produce testimony, because in most cases, the priest will choose to sit in jail for contempt rather than breach his religious duty. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/38 "2016-10-27T17:35:36Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > I believe it differs from state to state in Australia. I think it would be fair to say that in light of the very serious abuses performed by the Catholic church in Australia which have been heavily in our media (Cardinal Pell etc) that the Australian public would mostly be in favour of priests being obliged to break the confessional when there is ongoing harm to an individual. Eg if a Priest who is sexually abusing children confesses to another priest and then continues to abuse. We’re also a remarkably irreligious country anyway and rather famously had an openly atheist Prime Minister is the 1980’s who is remembered rather fondly (Bob Hawke) > > I believe that counsellors / psychiatrists are legally required to break privilege in Australia in cases of ongoing harm and I see no rational reason why religious clergy should not have a similar obligation. Sorry but real world ongoing harm takes priority over your made up rules from the invisible sky father. Nothing in your post addresses the law in Australia; you have merely shared your opinion of what the law should be and your opinion of what public sentiment might be. I assume that in Australia, neither your opinion nor a measurement of public sentiment would be the basis for an evidentiary ruling by a court. Or am I mistaken? As I say: I don’t know the law in Australia. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/39 "2016-10-27T17:42:55Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > It mostly traces back to Church doctrine (Catholic, because that was the only one back circa 400 AD). > . That’s a pretty simplistic note for a complicated issue of Church history. There was also the Nestorian Church, the Eastern Church, the Coptic Church, and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800/40 "2016-10-27T17:57:16Z")
I once got pretty drunk with my friend Michael and his uncle, an alcoholic Catholic priest. Michael’s uncle began telling “tales from the confessional” which I found hilarious, but Michael became increasingly upset. The priest said it was ok because he wasn’t naming names, but Michael insisted it was a horrible sin. Eventually Michael couldn’t take any more and asked me to leave. ETA: the priest got a real kick out of me calling him “Uncle Father”, but then again he was pretty trashed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-legal-prohibition-against-a-priest-revealing-a-confession/769800.md?page=3)