Obeying God Rather Than Men
It’s an old story: Monsignor Murphy is celebrating his fiftieth ordination anniversary. It’s a big affair and everyone turns out, as Monsignor has been in the same small town all those years. At the beginning of the evening Monsignor gives some remarks about how much he’s loved the priesthood but how shocking it was that the first confession he ever heard was of a murderer! The crowd laughs and the evening rolls on. Much later, the mayor arrives. As politicians do, he gets up to say a few words. He extols Monsignor’s priestly life and ministry. Then to the shock of the crowd he reveals, “Monsignor doesn’t know this, but mine was the first confession he ever heard!”
This story is told to illustrate, in a lighthearted way, the inviolability of the seal of the sacrament of confession and to impress that teaching on the minds of faithful and priests alike. In light of recent assaults on that seal, the wisdom of the story merits revisiting.
On May 2, 2025, the state of Washington’s Governor Robert Ferguson signed into law a bill that makes all clergy members mandated reporters of suspected child abuse. So far, so good. But the law permits no exemption for knowledge of suspected abuse gained through the sacrament of confession. Similarly, a United Kingdom official confirmed that the “Crime and Policing Bill” will not admit of any exception—including for the confessional seal—to mandated reporting of child sexual abuse. The Catholic bishops in both Washington State and the UK have pushed back.
It has always been the Catholic Church’s teaching that what a penitent shares in the sacrament of confession (the confessional) cannot under any circumstances be revealed to anyone. The Church’s Code of Canon Law states: “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.”
Priests have gone to their death in defense of this. Saint John Nepomucene (1345–1393) is sometimes invoked as a patron of confessors. It’s a telling invocation because it rests entirely on the belief that he was martyred out of fidelity to the seal of the confessional. As the queen of Bohemia’s confessor, he refused to reveal her confession to the suspicious king. He is invoked not for his theology or pastoral practice, but simply for his fidelity to the seal. Therefore, we’re dealing with more than just a matter of secrecy or prudence, something more than attorney–client privilege.
Granted, no reasonable person would think that suspected child abuse should not be reported. That said, the Catholic Church, so much in the crosshairs already on this issue, looks complicit in evil when she insists that even that information is protected by the confessional seal. “What are they hiding?” people might think. And the mainstream media encourage that line of thought. They typically present Church doctrine as a “policy” or “position.” If that were the case, then her insistence on the confessional seal would indeed be absurd. Thus it’s essential to understand this issue first and foremost in theological terms. The Church’s doctrine on the inviolability of the confessional seal flows not from political or legal considerations but from her understanding of Jesus Christ, the sacraments, and indeed her very self.
First, as with all sacraments, confession (also called penance or reconciliation) was established by Christ Himself. In the case of confession, the divine will to institute this sacrament was made manifest on the evening of Easter day. The risen Christ appeared to the Apostles in the upper room. He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:23). With those words, God gave to men the authority to forgive sins, but also, the authority to retain them. That is, not to forgive. Thus, to discern what is proper, the one forgiving (the confessor) needs from the one asking forgiveness (the penitent) a manifestation of conscience in his confession of sins and expression of contrition.
The Church lacks the authority to change in their essentials the sacraments that Christ has entrusted to her. For confession, the seal is one of those essentials. It is of divine origin, not human. To disregard it is to trample something sacred. Thus the Church attaches the penalty of excommunication to breaking the confessional seal. That is, to do so isn’t just a sin but also a crime (delict) according to the Church’s law. We see, then, that the seal is part of the Church’s understanding of herself and her governance, not just a political or legal position and certainly not a means of cover-up.
We can appreciate the absolute nature of the seal more when we consider it from the confessor’s perspective. The nature of the sacrament is such that when a priest hears confessions, he does so not in his own person, not as Father So-and-So, but in persona Christi, in the Person of Christ. Or, better, it is Christ Himself using the priest as an instrument for forgiving sins and reconciling penitents. Thus, what the confessor hears is not his information but Christ’s. However well-intentioned he may be, the priest is not free to do with that information what he wants. And he’s certainly not free to do with it what the state wants. Another implication of this is that not even the penitent can give the confessor permission to speak of what he confessed. Because, again, the penitent gave that information not to the priest but to Christ Himself through the priest’s ministry.
The sacredness of the seal is shown also by the fact that even its indirect violation is wrong (as in the case of poor Monsignor Murphy). A priest must have such reverence for the seal that he doesn’t speak or act in any way that someone can impute a particular sin to a particular person. In practice, this means that a priest should speak very little (or not at all) about anything he hears lest he inadvertently reveal the sins of another. This has immediate import for laws requiring the reporting of child sexual abuse because one can see how easily the handing on of information gained from the confessional could lead also to the disclosing of a person’s sins.
The seal is understood also from the penitent’s point of view. As mentioned earlier, confession requires the penitent to make a manifestation of conscience: that he accuse himself of his sins of thought, word, and deed, and that he name those sins by number and kind. Thus, the content of confession isn’t just something embarrassing that the penitent doesn’t want others to know or that human courtesy keeps under wraps. We’re dealing with the person’s innermost self, where God is most present. Confession must have a confidentiality worthy of the human conscience, “the most secret core and sanctuary of a man.”
This consideration has already brought us to pastoral practice. The only reason the Catholic faithful go to confession—very often to a priest they don’t even know—is because they trust in this teaching. Confession is not a mere human interaction in which the priest’s personality, wisdom, learning, or sanctity are paramount. It is an encounter between the penitent and Christ through the ministry of the priest (who is always unequal to the sacred duty). That is what Jesus established, and that is what both priests and faithful observe. Were it otherwise, penitents would be reluctant or unwilling to make the manifestation of conscience necessary for the sacrament. The penitent’s duty to confess thus depends on inviolable confidentiality.
From this theological truth also flows the Church’s insistence in the public square that under no circumstances can the confessional seal be violated. This is not a legal or political “stance.” It is not a matter of right or left. It is simply a statement about the Church’s own theology and, indeed, about who the Church is. The only political statement being made here is that the state has no authority over the inner workings of the Church. “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
People object, “but these laws serve a very good purpose,” indeed, the highest purpose: to protect Christ’s little ones. But in pursuing such goods we should always be wary of trampling other goods in the process. It’s not enough to seek justice. We must do so in a just manner, in a way that respects the rights not just of man but of God and his Church.
It’s also helpful to keep in mind that many persecutions of the Church begin with good intentions, not with theological issues as such but with matters of state efficiency and practicality. It would be politically naïve to think that the state will stop with just that kind of information from the confessional. Once the state gains access to any organization, it tends to demand more authority over it. If the Church were to give way for the sake of this good purpose, there would most certainly be another good purpose around the corner. She would find that in betraying what God had entrusted to her she gained nothing and only exposed herself to more intrusion.
In the end, it’s not so much that the Church refuses to comply with such laws as that she cannot comply. It would be contrary to who she is. The slightest give on this issue would be a betrayal of what Jesus Christ entrusted to the Church. It would be likewise a betrayal of the Church’s own self-understanding and teaching.
Image licensed via Adobe Stock.