Inspired by watching a couple minutes of a TV crime drama (no idea what show):
Say a guy is Catholic, deeply religious. Said guy, for whatever reason, kills a man. Said guy can’t stand the guilt, and goes to confession, and tells the priest about what he’s done.
AFAIK, priests are forbidden by the church to reveal anything said to them during confession. What would happen in the following scenarios?
A: Priest goes to the police and tells them. If called upon to testify in court, would his testimony be held legally valid?
B: Priest doesn’t go forward, but police figure out that the perp went to confession shortly after the crime. THey go to the priest, and he tells them.
Would their be any ramifications for the priest, within the church, if he told?
A: No. The priest could not testify in court. The conversation in which he learned the information is privileged, and that privilege is held by the penitent - the accused. The priest may not testify without the consent of the accused.
B: The Code of Canon Law, Can. 983 §1, provides that the sacramental seal is inviolable. Accordingly, it is absolutely wrong for a confessor in any way to betray the penitent, for any reason whatsoever, whether by word or in any other fashion. Can. 1388 §1 provides that a confessor who violates the sacramental seal, incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See to remove.
I’m not religious at all, so I don’t know if a church would have penalties for priests. But if churchgoers found out about it, they would feel that the priest is dishonest and basically and asshole and would no longer go there. So for that reason, maybe churches do have consequences.
To state the obvious: the preist would strongly encourage the penitent to thun himself in. I actually know a preist who told me about a case he had like this (many years ago, and a mugging, not a murder).
I believe they could also refuse to give the absolution as long as the penitent don’t turn himself in.
Sorry for the hijack, but : aren’t there sins which are “reserved” to bishops, and can only be absolved by them?
No. The priest may not coerce someone to reveal their confession to anyone else. The only time a priest may withhold absolution if there is a ‘moral certitude’ that the penitent is not sorry. And the sorrow of the penitent need not be true contrition, but simple attrition (fear of punishment).
The priest may counsel a criminal to turn themselves in. And in the case of theft, the priest may require the penitent to repay what they stole (if they can, if they can’t they must donate their ill gotten gains to charity).
That’s true. As Bricker pointed out, only the Pope may reconcile a priest who violated the seal of confession back to the Church.
Actually, any priest may absolve the sin of any person in almost any case. (The only exception I can think of off the top of my head is that a priest may not absolve his own partner in a sin against the Sixth Commandment).
What is reserved to the bishops in some cases, and the Holy See in others, is the administrative penalty, such as excommunication. So a priest who sinned by violating the seal of the confessional may confess that sin and be absolved by any priest; the Holy See must lift the automatic excommunication imposed by the priest’s act.