Dist. 21, Part 2, Art. 2, Q. 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/21/q/bon-sent-IV-d21-p2-a2-q1
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### Article II. *On the seal of confession.*

Consequently, as regards the second article, inquiry is made concerning the seal of confession. And about this three things are asked.

First it is asked, whether in any case it is licit to reveal a confession.

Second, whether the one confessing can license the priest to reveal it.

Third, whether that which a priest knows in two ways — namely through confession and through another route — he is bound to keep concealed.

### Question I. *Whether in any case it is licit to reveal a confession.*

As regards the first, it is shown that he cannot reveal it.

1. Augustine, *On Penance,* distinction six: «Let the priest above all things take care that he recount to no one concerning those who confess their sins to him».

2. Likewise, the decretal published in the General Council, *On Penances and Remissions*: «But let the priest take care that he in no way betray the sinner by word or by sign or by any other manner whatsoever».

3. Likewise, this seems [to follow] *by reason:* for sins are blotted out in confession; but for a sin which God has remitted, no one is to be accused: therefore if the priest is the minister of remission, he cannot accuse or expose the sinner without acting against the office of a priest: therefore every such priest is to be deposed.

4. Likewise, the sinner confesses to the priest, and the priest receives in the place of God; but God conceals the sin of the penitent and does not expose it: therefore the priest too is bound to conceal it.

5. Likewise, the priest who hears the sinner does not know whether he tells him the truth: therefore he does not know whether that man is culpable: therefore if we ought to accuse the sin of no one except him of whom it is established for us [that he is guilty]: therefore a sin known through confession is in no way to be betrayed.

**On the contrary:** 1. Let it be supposed that someone swears to tell the truth concerning some deed; no one can or ought to lie or swear falsely or perjure or forswear himself in order to avoid some scandal: therefore he ought rather to make [it] known than to answer falsely.

2. Likewise, let it be supposed that he hears a heretic in confession, who is unwilling to repent, but [wishes] to corrupt others; the priest ought rather to keep faith with Christ than with the heretic himself: therefore he ought rather to expose that man's confession than to permit him to corrupt the Lord's flock.

3. Likewise, let it be supposed that a priest knows through confession that between two people an affinity has been contracted by fornicatory intercourse, and that afterwards they wish to contract [marriage] in the face of the Church; if the priest joins them, since they sin mortally, he consents to their sin: therefore he sins mortally: therefore if he ought not to become a participant in another's crime, he ought to make this known. A like case is in the dean, who has heard the confession of those having an irregularity, [namely] whether he ought to present them to the bishop as candidates for ordination, or to reveal the confession.

4. Likewise, let it be supposed that some prior of an order of monks confesses to the abbot, and as long as he is in the priorate he has an occasion drawing [him] to a sin from which he is unwilling to desist; if [the abbot] has the care of his soul, he is bound to remove him from there; but by removing him it becomes known that he himself has sinned: therefore it seems that a confession can in some way be revealed.

### Conclusion.

> For no scandal, nor cause, is a confession to be revealed by a priest.

**I respond:** On this point some wished to distinguish, that one can confess to a priest in two ways: either as a penitent and willing to be absolved from sin, and then the seal of confession closes everything that he says, without any disclosure; or in such a way that he does not wish to desist from sin, as if he reveals a purpose of perjuring himself, or of killing a man, or some such thing, and then [the priest] is not bound to close [it] under the seal of confession, but can tell it to one who can do good and not harm.

But although that seems to be said with probability, nevertheless, since the command and the institution speak *generally* of every fault, and the penitent reveals his sin not as to a man, but as to God, and the priest does not know whether the man tells the truth or deceives him, unless he should know it through another person; he ought in no way to make that person known, for this reason: that the seal of confession is to be most diligently guarded on account of scandal, lest the penitent be drawn back from confession. On account of which also a great miracle happened on a certain ship, as is related of a certain man who publicly confessed his sins at sea, and after they came to port, no one knew what he had said. Whence the priest ought so to know [it] as if he had not heard and as if he did not know. And on account of this it must be said that, as Gregory says, and is contained in the text, for no scandal is a confession to be revealed.

*To 1.* To that, then, which is objected concerning the oath, it must be said that he can safely say: *I do not know;* nor does he perjure himself, because the oath does not oblige him to tell anything except that which he knows as a man, not as God, since above God there is no one. Whence for no precept of obedience, for no oath, or peril, ought he to tell it.

*To 2.* To that which is objected concerning the heretic, it must be said that he ought to be silent and to say nothing in particular through that knowledge; he can, however, without revealing the confession, say to a superior: *watch over the sheep, for there is a wolf in the flock,* if he probably sees that the man who confessed has told the truth, and that peril threatens the sheep. He can also and ought to be solicitous, without revealing the confession, how he may know [it] and

provide for the Lord's flock; and then he keeps faith both with his Lord and also with the one confessing, [the faith] which he owes.

*To 3.* To that which is objected concerning the presbyter, it must be said that the presbyter ought to dissuade him who has confessed, and likewise the dean [ought to dissuade] the cleric; and if that one asks [for the marriage], he ought to defer it, and unless that one is compelled by a superior, or by the scandal of the people, he ought neither to bless such a marriage nor to present the clerics. But from then on he can, because it is not he himself who does it, but the Church; and the Church judges according to those things which are external. Nevertheless the counsel is that both the priest and the dean should act through a vicar, both on account of the hidden confusion of those people, and also on account of the horror of the crime. If, however, he himself does it, I do not believe that he sins, provided he does not offer himself unbidden, but bears it under compulsion.

*To 4.* To that which is asked concerning the subordinate who does not wish to cease from the fault, it must be said that the superior ought to persuade him to a voluntary cession, and that he himself ask to be absolved from the burden of the office. But if he is unwilling, [the superior] ought not to absolve him, but ought to bear with him, unless it be such a religious [order] in which subordinates can be transmuted and transferred without a note of infamy.