Quodlibet 10 : The seal of the confessional

Is it true to say that even if a priest knows through confession that he is clearly dealing with a serious criminal, he may not under any circumstances reveal any information that may lead the police to question or even arrest that person?

In Quodlibet 1 we quoted the Church's Code of Canon Law, which says:

"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." (canon 983 §1)

So there is indeed no way that a priest can tell the police about a penitent's confession, no matter how serious the crime. In fact, if the priest were to do so, he would automatically be excommunicated (canon 1388 §1). The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that this secrecy "admits of no exceptions" (para. 1467) and that it "cannot be violated under any pretext" (para. 2490). Nor can the priest use information he learns from confession to the penitent's detriment (canon 984 §1).

The priest can, however, use what he has learned from confession to prevent harm, provided he doesn't betray the penitent or use the knowledge he has gained to the penitent's detriment. The classic example is the penitent who has confessed to poisoning the cruet of wine that the priest is about to use for Mass. In such a case the priest can safely dispose of the poisoned wine and use fresh wine instead, without danger of betraying the penitent or to the penitent's detriment.

Similarly, there might be ways that a priest could seek to avoid harm being done by someone who has confessed to being a murderer/rapist/abuser of children: for example, by taking special care not to leave vulnerable people alone with such a person. But the priest must always remember that the seal of confession is inviolable. He may never disclose or even hint at what has been confessed to him.

The priest hearing a confession has a vitally important responsibility to help the penitent towards healing from his sin. That would include helping the penitent realise the steps he needs to take to stop sinning and to avoid the "occasions of sin", those situations where the penitent might not be strong enough to resist temptation. With the sort of sins that the questioner mentions, one possible way for the penitent to avoid future occasions of sin and obtain the psychological help he may need would be to hand himself over to the police. It might be appropriate for the priest to suggest this. Although the priest cannot make it a condition form absolution (cf. canon 980), a truly contrite penitent will certainly want to take the steps necessary to avoid sin and the danger that others might come to harm in the future.

So while the answer to the question is that the priest may never reveal what has been confessed to him under any circumstances, he nevertheless has a crucial role in seeking to avoid harm being done.

The answer to this question is provided by Fr. Ben Earl, a canon lawyer, who teaches at Blackfriars, Oxford, and is the Provincal Bursar of the Province.

Quodlibet 9: Call no one on earth your father

I attended a social function recently. I noticed that some attendees addressed the Catholic priest as 'Mr'. They quoted the verse that says call no one Father etc. Could you help me understand the reasoning behind our use of Father as a form of address of our priests?


The passage from Matthew about calling no one on earth your father, as with all scripture, needs to be carefully interpreted. Surely Jesus did not mean that we now have to start calling our parents by their first names. Rather, Jesus is reminding us that there is only one source of our being, our Father in heaven. Titles can be dangerous because they can make us forget this, and they can foster a spirit of superiority and pride. Given this warning, why do we address priests as father? Well, the priest acts in the person of Christ. This means the priest has the authority to act in the power and place of the person of Christ himself. Therefore, by calling a priest father, we are really showing reverence to Christ.

Quodlibet 8 - Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

"How, exactly, do we forgive others? We can say the words, but what if we simply cannot? How is forcing yourself to forgive any more possible than forcing yourself to like spinach? Are there techniques that work?"

Forgiving others can often be a very difficult thing to do. It is so often the case that the people that we find it hardest to forgive are the people closest to us – parents, siblings, a wife or husband, children, a girlfriend or boyfriend, our best friend and so on. When such people do things that hurt us, things that seem to us unprovoked or unjust we feel it deeply. After all, this is someone who we thought loved and cared for us. There are, unfortunately no techniques. But there are a few things that we might wish to meditate on as a starting point.

When we find it hard to forgive, we must ask ourselves questions about our levels of expectations of others. Sometimes we find it hard to forgive people because we expect them to be superhuman. Those we love can become God-like, and then we hurt when they do not live up to our impossibly high expectations. When this is the case, we need to be honest and accept that others cannot be God for us. Only God can. Realisation of this can help free us a little and prepare the ground for forgiveness, and help us to see our relationships in the right light.

We must also acknowledge that sometimes we are rather too keen to hold on to grievances against others, and to develop a story surrounding an event that becomes more elaborate and distorted as time goes on. This can make us unhappy, but goes some way to helping us to define who and what we are. The problem is that this means defining ourselves as victims, and allowing our past to shackle us, preventing us from living in the present. We must remember that it is not easy to walk forwards when we are looking back over our shoulder! In all these things it helps if we can pluck up the courage to talk to someone whom we trust, who can help us to see the wood from the trees.

Another thing that is perhaps important to note is that difficulties in forgiving others are often linked to an inability to receive forgiveness offered to us by God. The Gospel leaves us with little doubt that receiving forgiveness for our sins and forgiving others are inextricably linked (see Mat 6:12-15). If I cannot believe in God’s power to forgive my sins through Jesus Christ, how can I hope to forgive others? When it is hard to believe that God forgives our sins, it might help to reflect for a while on the formula for absolution said by the Priest in the Sacrament of Penance (see CCC 1449).

So after we have reflected, what next? I think the fact that there are not techniques for forgiveness is good news. Why? Because forgiveness is not something we can achieve for ourselves. Forgiveness is a gift freely given by God to those who ask for it. What we have to do in order to forgive others is to pray to have the courage to look with honesty at what has wounded us so much, and to pray to truly want to forgive the person who has wronged us. We pray for a change of heart. It is then that Christ’s grace can enter in, so that we can live with the freedom and lightness of spirit that is characteristic of the children of God. This is not easy, and often takes some time and much patience, because the things that have hurt us are often so complicated. But with God, and only with God, it is possible…..

Quodlibet 7: Is priesthood a higher, better, more spiritual calling than marriage?

Essentially it is not good to start considering the sacraments in terms of a hierarchical order: each of them has its particular role and function in the life of the Church. The seven sacraments touch the important moments in the Christian life, and this reflects a resemblance between the stages of natural life and the stages of spiritual life.

The sacraments of Holy Orders and Matrimony are directed towards the salvation of others, and so if they contribute towards personal salvation also, they do so through service to others - the priest in his service of the faithful, and the married person in the service of their spouse.

Through these sacraments, those who have already been consecrated by Baptism and Confirmation for the common priesthood of all the faithful receive particular consecrations. Those who receive the sacrament of Holy Orders are consecrated in the name of Christ to feed the Church with the word and grace of God. Those who are married are consecrated for the duties and dignity of their state by a special sacrament.

Ordination is not therefore a higher, better, or more spiritual calling than marriage. Nor, indeed, could the reverse be argued. Both are sacraments for the channelling of God's grace to all those who require it.

Quodlibet 6 - Vows and Sacraments

'Why is religious profession a sacramental and not a Sacrament? Similarly, a priest is eternally a priest...is a religious eternally a religious and why...is it because the vows are eternal and it is a realization of God's call, or is there some other reason?’

The simple answer to the first question is: because the Church has discerned that profession is not a sacrament. But this in itself can tell us a lot. The seven sacraments that have been defined by the Church deal with stages in our life as Christians, which, in a sense are not unconnected with the biological and psychological stages of our life. Our Baptism is the beginning of our Christian lives, Confirmation marks Christian maturity, the Eucharist nourishes us on our journey. When we are weakened in body or soul we receive strength and healing through Anointing of the Sick and Confession. All humans are made to seek God in communion with one another, and need to be guided and lead. For this we have Marriage and Holy Orders. The Church’s discernment is that these are the seven special gifts of Christ to the Church, by which the Church becomes more perfectly Christ-like, and that have permanent value in the Church.

Sacramentals, on the other hand, ‘bear a resemblance to the sacraments’ (CCC, 1667). Religious profession is a particular means of living out our baptism in such a way that we become conformed to Christ, but (and this may be shocking for religious amongst us) is not necessary for the survival of the Church in the way that sacraments are. It is a sobering thought that religious will continue to exist as long as they are useful to the Church in their prayer, witness and ministry. It is nevertheless a ‘gift from [the] Lord’ so that the Church can ‘show forth Christ and acknowledge her to be the Saviour’s bride’ (CCC, 926).

Quodlibet 5 - Search for God

Question:

Many people sincerely search for God. The multiplicity of religious beliefs as well as agnosticism and atheism indicate that the evidence is not clear. Why doesn't God make things clearer, so that those of good will reach broadly the same conclusions?

Answer:

This is a great question, and a difficult one. In fact there are two questions in it: What has God done to reveal himself to us in a way that is accessible to us? And, why does he not ‘make’ everybody ‘reach the same conclusion’? So the first question concerns revelation, the second one is about human nature.

God revealed himself to us through one of us, Jesus Christ. It was not only through words and various action of Jesus, but through his whole life as a person. Still more, it was not just a person, but the Word of God made flesh, a divine person. Christ points to the Father, because ‘he and the Father are one’. As Christ is sent by the Father, so he sent out his disciples to preach the word and to love one another as he had loved them. He gives to the Church, which is his Body on earth, the Spirit to guide its members and lead them to the fullness of truth. This is the history of revelation and salvation – in a nutshell.

Could this have been done in a better way? This is a speculative question. Surely we can come up with lots of improvements ‘on paper’, but in practice, God’s plan of revelation and salvation did take into account that we are free creatures. A lot of things might have been done otherwise, but humanity acted in such ways that we bear some consequences for what our ancestors did. God has always respected our freedom. So it seems to me that we need to have a closer look at our condition and why it is that we can search for God ‘in good will’ and come up with such a variety of answers.

So let us think a bit about human nature.

The coming of Christ also revealed to us what it is to be properly human. We are made in the image of God, and always strive to achieve a better likeness with God. The image of God in us is our ability to understand and know (and therefore to choose) and to love. This is, however, a process. Nobody is born a ‘complete’ human being. We grow, develop, learn and in doing this we have the promise of the help of the Spirit, provided that we do search. Not everybody is able to do this. Some people ‘of good will’ are oppressed by all sorts of real problems, such as hunger, war, etc. This is where it is not so much preaching the Word by the Church as the works of love that are crucial. We cannot help those who suffer by preaching only. We need to preach by our love, by actively helping them. Other people of good will are restricted in their way of thinking by the culture or society they live or lived in. Think about the reaction of the people to whom Jesus preached: "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?" Think about the persecution of the early Church by the Romans, etc. etc. I think that a vast majority of those were actually people of good will, who at some stage of their lives stopped searching for truth. They were comfortable with what they already had, not realizing, I think, that the truth is bigger than them and thier ways, and that the search for truth never ceases. God respects this. The whole beauty of human nature is that it always grows, and always remains free to reject the love of God. Not that the rejection itself is something beautiful but that in our free choice we are like God. We can exercise our free choice so that we reach ultimate freedom by being united with God, or we can choose to confine ourselves in our creatureliness, by rejecting God’s love.

I’m not sure whether this provides a sufficient answer to your question. Probably not, as no sufficient answer can be given ‘in the abstract’. Concrete individuals had their specific history of life, in which they either found the truth, or found some truth, or rejected the truth. Why did it happen? We would have to look at each of them separately, as we can give no common reason just by analyzing our common, human nature. The final point I want to make is that people can reach certain truths about God on various levels. Let me illustrate this: if I attack you in order to convert you to Christianity, I’ll probably fail to do it, but you are most likely to realize that the God you would rather believe in has nothing to do with violence. In this, you would actually reach a truth about God. At the end of the day, was it not Job who, being not a member of the Chosen Nation, was actually the only one who in the Old Testament is said to talk truly about God?

The Catholic Church's understanding of how God has revealed Himself to us, and of how that revelation is handed on from generation to generation, is presented in Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum). For the text, click here.

Quodlibet 4 - Baptism of Infants

Lent is begining tomorrow. It has always been a special time for those preparing to receive baptism. Br. David Rocks answers the next Quodlibet on the baptism of infants.

Question:

Is the practice of consecrating one's child to God shortly after birth still in use? Does the Church say anything about this today?

Answer:

Baptism is the first of the Sacraments of Initiation, of which there are three: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist. Throughout the centuries, the process of Christian initiation has varied according to circumstances. In the early Church, the initiation process was highly developed. A long period of catechumenate and preparation, marked with various points of liturgical action, culminated in the celebration of the Sacraments of Initiation. The Church also practised infant baptism, in which the rite of baptism soon after birth involved an abridged collation of various liturgical rites of initiation in one ceremony. This is the most familiar form of the rite.

The Church teaches us that Baptism is necessary for the salvation of those who have heard the Gospel and have had the opportunity to ask for it. Thus, the salvation of God is not bound by the sacrament. The Church preaches the Gospel to all humanity from the first moments of their lives to the last moments, ‘for we know not the day or the hour’. Thus, the baptism of infants is a necessary thing.

Children are born into fallen human nature, a nature alienated from God by original sin, thus these children also have the need of the new birth of baptism in order that they might be freed from the power of darkness, and live as free children of God. Salvation is for fallen humanity, and we are all in need of it for eternal life; yet salvation is not to be ‘earned’ in any way. This is why infant baptism makes manifest the sheer gratuitousness of salvation. To deny baptism to a child is to deny it the priceless grace of being a child of God.

Since this baptism takes place before the age of reason, there is a need for catechetical instruction of the baptised after the reception of the sacrament. This is the responsibility of the whole Church, but particularly the child’s parents, who must nurture the child in all things. But the child grows in faith with the help of the baptism it has received.

For children who die before baptism, the Church commends them to the mercy of God, who desires the salvation of all. Because of the tenderness of God for the poor and the little, Christians can hope with confidence that children who die without having received the sacrament of Baptism will also be saved.

See Catechism of the Catholic Church Chapter 1, article 1: §§1213 – 1284

Quodlibet 3 - InChristation

Yet another Quodlibet! Answer provided by Br. Gregory Murphy

Question:

InChristation is the other side of Incarnation. God became man so that man might become God. By dying on the cross, God opened the gates of eternity to mankind. Christ showed that the entry to Paradise was accomplished through suffering and that no one enters Paradise alone. That is why we can make reparation for the sins of others.

Is this thinking naive? Heretical? Stupid? Or is it an opening to a better understanding of the mysteries of our faith?

Answer:

I think the latter – an opening to a better understanding. ‘InChristation’ (I rather like this neologism (in English at least)) is rather like the other side of the Incarnation, in the sense of the reverse side of a coin, in that by God (or more precisely God’s Word) becoming human, humans can now come to accept the gift extended to us from God of sharing in God’s life. This is the core of what we mean by ‘salvation’, and it happens in Baptism, when we become incorporated into the Body of Christ, becoming adopted sons in the Son. Of course we then have to realise it (to make it real) in our lives, slowly to learn what demands our trying to keep company with God, to walk in his ways, will make on us, what it might let us become, if we will only cooperate.

That’s where the talk of our divinisation comes from: ‘God became man that man might become (as) God’ - a slogan which has endured from Patristic times to the present, taken from a free rendering of some verses of the psalms. We become divinised, through God’s gift of his Spirit enlikened to God, sufficiently to be able to enjoy his life with Him; but we do not thereby become divine. We become like God, enough, we hope, to see him not “now as in a mirror, dimly, but then face-to-face” (1Cor 13:12); but we do not become God.

Did Jesus have to die to save us? I think that the key to trying to understand this mystery is to grasp that the fact that Jesus was put to death perhaps tells us more about ourselves than it does about God. Jesus showed us the human face of God, the human face of self-sacrificing love. But to love this way is to risk, to lay yourself open to the needs of others, to become vulnerable to them. And in the fallen human world of violence and corrupted relationships, of sin, this leads to the cross. Jesus was God’s gift of himself as man to humans; humans rejected this gift, and killed him. But the last word in that particular dialogue was God’s, in the Resurrection. Now, with Jesus living, risen, we are in communion, in one Body with him through the Spirit. But it wasn’t Jesus’ suffering as suffering that saves us; God isn’t like a severe judge, demanding reparation and issuing punishments. We could think of the Incarnation as the image of God projected onto human history. And our sinful history has distorted that image, producing the image of the cross. But God takes up and transforms the evil we have done in the Resurrection and inasmuch as we share in the life of the risen Lord we too ultimately escape death by being caught up into God’s life.

One of the ways we realise the presence of God’s love and life in us is in compassion, our ‘feeling-with’ the suffering of others. And as we are being built up by the Spirit into the one Body of Christ we are being bound together in one fellowship or communion. So, in a sense we save ourselves – by letting ourselves become able to accept God’s love in Christ by serving others, so in that sense we don’t enter paradise, life with God, alone. As one of my brothers noted recently, when we die we usually leave all sorts of unfinished business behind us. But our time for action is in this life. So we hope that people still living will offer prayers and beseech God’s mercy for us, and by their charity help to undo the damage we have left in our passage through this life. That, I think, is how I understand ‘reparation’, and praying on behalf of the dead; as those in bliss, the saints, pray for us. Both living and dead (as human history sees it) are part of the one, living body of the risen Lord.

Quodlibet 2 - 100 basic Christian texts

One of the friends of our community in Oxford asked us a very interesting question. We would like to extend this question to you.

What would be among your 100 basic Christian texts, without which you do not think that Christianity ever could have begun or developed, or those texts with which you think others will always associate their Christianity both in practice (e.g. Hail Mary and Our Father) or theologically or liturgically?

If you have any opinions on this, please share them with us! Have your say by adding a comment to this post. Give us some reasons for your choice, if you wish!

Quodlibet 1 - How are priests prepared to be confessors?

Godzdogz has had a question about the way in which priests are prepared for the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation. On the one hand there is the remote preparation priests make for this which includes most of what they study: scripture, liturgy, moral theology, doctrine - all of it is needed if a person is to be adequately prepared for the role of confessor. On the other hand there is the immediate preparation, closer to the time when he is due to be ordained. This involves pastoral theology, canon law and practical moral theology. The spiritual life of the priest, his own prayer and his use of the sacraments, are also essential to his preparation for being a confessor.

The seal of the confessional is, of course, absolute. The code of canon law speaks of it as follows:
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 (canon 983).

So a priest can never reveal what he has heard in the confessional, not to anybody else and not for any reason whatsoever. This sets a strict boundary to what a priest may say when he is helping seminarians prepare to be confessors. He may, of course, speak with them about kinds of sins or types of situations that they might encounter and help them to think about how they ought to respond in such situations. But this will always be very general, 'in the abstract' as it were: the confessor is alone as he hears confessions and what he learns there about individuals must remain absolutely inviolable.

In an apostolic exhortation from 1984 John Paul II spoke about this preparation of priests for the ministry of the confessional. He emphasised not only the theological and spiritual formation they require but also formation in what he calls 'the methodology of dialogue' (Reconciliatio et paenitentia, 1984, paragraph 29). He says:

Every priest must be trained for the ministry of sacramental penance from his years in the seminary, not only through the study of dogmatic, moral, spiritual and pastoral theology (which are simply parts of a whole), but also through the study of the human sciences, training in dialogue and especially in how to deal with people in the pastoral context. He must then be guided and looked after in his first activities. He must always ensure his own improvement and updating by means of permanent study.

Put more simply what the 'methodology of dialogue' means is how to receive, listen and respond to another human being who comes in the vulnerable role of a contrite and confessing sinner. It is about some basic human skills: how to meet, greet, receive, listen to, be with, and speak to another person. This may seem very obvious to some but it is important to think about it because this one-to-one human conversation is the basis on which the sacrament is made just as the failure of this conversation humanly speaking may result in people turning away from the sacrament.

Quodlibet - ask us a question!

We would like to add a new feature to the 'study' section of Godzdogz: a virtual quodlibet.

The quodlibet, roughly meaning whatever it pleases, was a form of teaching employed in the medieval university at which questions on any topic which pleased the audience were put to a teacher. These questions and answers were sometimes written up and published, most famously in the Quaestiones de quodlibet of Thomas Aquinas.

We hope that this will be a valuable, interactive element to add to our blog. We invite you therefore to propose questions which you feel we might be able to answer - whatever it pleases you to ask. From time to time we will research answers to your questions and post them here.

Please email your questions to godzdogz@gmail.com.