Seal of confession

“ If a priest learned from the confession of his servant that she had put poison in the wine he was to take for dinner, Catholic theology directs that he must not even change the bottle, but act precisely as if he had heard nothing. I never heard of a test case, though it is well known that there have been martyrs to the seal of confession. In minor matters, of course, the confessor interprets his obligation generously. ”

“ Now both these opinions, by exaggerating the seal of confession, are prejudicial to the truth and to the safeguarding of justice. For a man might be more inclined to sin, if he had no fear of being accused by his confessor supposing that he repeated the sin in his presence: and furthermore it would be most prejudicial to justice if a man could not bear witness to a deed which he has seen committed again after being confessed to him. ”

“ Unlawful use of sacramental knowledge happens if there is no direct or indirect violation of the seal, but the confessor’s conduct is such as to make confession distasteful either to the penitent or to others, as when a superior is guided in giving his vote or directing his subject by information gathered from confession. ”

“ I have known this many a day that there needs no priest to make a confession valid, but that to every truly penitent heart the way to the very throne of Heaven is open, and that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. If I regretted aught, it was that I must die without another kind of confession—the confessing my faith openly before men. ”

“ Do you not see that all these are deceitful artifices of the devil to bring you to hell? No; the confessor will not rebuke you, but he will give an advice suited to your state. A confessor cannot experience greater consolation than in absolving a penitent who confesses his sins with true sorrow and with sincerity. If a queen were mortally wounded by a slave, and you were in possession of a remedy by which she could be cured, how great would be your joy in saving her life! Such is the joy which a confessor feels in absolving a soul in the state of sin. ”

“ The clergyman surveyed his interviewer earnestly for a moment.
‘Is it a crime?’ he asked.
The passenger nodded.
‘I don’t want to die with it on my mind,’ he murmured. ‘I fancy when the—the end comes, I shall die easier.’
‘My friend,’ said the clergyman, kindly, ‘do not imagine that a confession at the last moment takes guilt from the soul. To confess a crime to one who is about to share your fate is, perhaps, rather a superstitious than a religious deed. Let us understand each other. We both believe that we are about to die. ”

“ The confessor has to intervene, remind the penitent of these duties, and secure that they shall be done, before he can absolve from sin. Instead of becoming the keeper of the sinner's conscience, the confessor is but its instructor: duty and responsibility remain in all their extent to the penitent. And the penitent has to test the genuineness of his contrition by unmistakable obligations to be complied with, if forgiveness of sin is to be obtained. ”

“ Does confession really relieve your mind? Does it make your sins fall off you like an old garment? My friends have told me so, but I cannot believe it.’
‘Oh, sir, your friends were right, indeed. It is the greatest comfort anyone can have. Why, when the priest absolves you, they are all gone. You not only need not trouble yourself about them again, but you are strictly forbidden to do so. It would be doubting God’s goodness, and the power He has imparted to His priests. Oh, sir, do try it, only just once,’ continued the woman, who saw in Hindes a possible convert. ”

“ For there is, so to speak, at the close of life a sudden repentance in action, and a true confession toward Christ, in the testimony of the voice. But if the Spirit of the Father testifies in us, how can we be any more hypocrites, who are said to bear testimony with the voice alone? But it will be given to some, if expedient, to make a defence, that by their witness and confession all may be benefited—those in the church being confirmed, and those of the heathen who have devoted themselves to the search after salvation wondering and being led to the faith ”

“ The full pardon for every sin; (2) the right of choosing a confessor, who, whenever the hour of death appeared at hand, should give absolution for all sin, even from the greatest crimes reserved for the apostolic see; (3) a participation in all the blessings, works and merits of the Catholic Church, prayers, fasts, alms, and the pilgrimages; and (4) redemption of the souls that are in purgatory. To obtain the first of these graces it was said to be necessary to “have contrition of heart and confession of mouth, or at least an intention of confessing. ”

“ But on the side of the sinner himself it seems as if the need ought to have been too great to accept so summary a refusal of its satisfaction. One would think that in more men the shell of secrecy would have had to open, the pent-in abscess to burst and gain relief, even though the ear that heard the confession were unworthy. The Catholic church, for obvious utilitarian reasons, has substituted auricular confession to one priest for the more radical act of public confession. ”

“ Has not your Confessor already spoken to you about it?
—No, Monseigneur.
—Ah, do not tell a falsehood. It is a mortal sin to tell a falsehood in confession. Who is your Confessor?
—He is Monsieur Matou.
—Ah, Matou! the Abbé Matou. Yes, yes, he has spoken to you about it, I know him; he must have spoken to you about it. Come, tell me all about that.
—Well, once he asked me....
—Ah, ah! well, well! do not stop. What is it he asked you?
—He asked me ... ah! it is a long time ago, before my first communion. ”

“ Fathers, Mothers and guardians of those children, if, through your fault or theirs, your children are guilty of a false confession: if they do not confess every thing to the priest who holds the place of God, Himself, this sin is often irreparable: the Devil will take possession of their hearts: they will lie to their father confessor, or rather to Jesus Christ, of whom he is the representative: Their lives will be a series of sacrileges, their death and eternity, those of reprobates. ”

“ And so I want to ask the friends in this hall, Who will set to his seal or her seal that God is true? It is a great deal better for us to make ourselves liars and God true than to try and make ourselves out true and God a liar. That is what many men will do. Who will set to his seal that God is true? Unbelief says, “I won’t.” Faith says, “I will set to my seal.” ”

“ But if those honest attempts, on the part of some well-meaning popes, to punish the confessors who destroy the purity of their penitents, have failed to touch the guilty parties, they are, in the good providence of God, infallible witnesses to tell to the world that auricular confession is nothing else than a snare to the confessor and his dupes. Yes, those Bulls of the popes are an irrefragable testimony that auricular confession is the most powerful invention of the devil to corrupt the heart, pollute the body, and damn the soul of the priest and his female penitent! ”

“ In any other place than a confessional to talk about self at any length is an error; in the confessional it is a virtue. The truth is that pious Roman Catholic women find happiness in the confessional and try the patience of the priests by minute accounts of trifling or imaginary sins. No doubt confession places an immense power in the hands of the Church, but at an incalculable cost of patience. It is not felt to weigh unfairly on the laity, because the priest who to-day has forgiven your faults will to-morrow kneel in penitence and ask forgiveness for his own. ”

“ Before giving absolution, the priest may assign to the penitent a psalm, prayer, or hymn to be said, or something to be done, as a sign of penitence and act of thanksgiving.
The content of a confession is not normally a matter of subsequent discussion. The secrecy of a confession is morally absolute for the confessor, and must under no circumstances be broken. ”

“ Those of us who were to confess at a particular time, took our places on our knees near the confession-box, and after having repeated a number of prayers, etc., prescribed in our book, came up one at a time and kneeled beside a fine wooden lattice work, which entirely separated the confessor from us, yet permitted us to place our faces almost to his ear, and nearly concealed his countenance from our view. ”

“ You would very likely call me a scoundrel for daring to question the honesty and purity of such holy men. You would perhaps go as far as to contend that it is utterly impossible for them to be guilty of such sins as are alluded to in the above question; that never such shameful deeds have been perpetrated through confession. And you would, maybe, emphatically deny that your confessor has ever said or done anything that might lead you to sin or even commit any breach of propriety or modesty. ”

“ Is any a confessor? His danger after a confession is greater, because the adversary is more provoked. Is he a confessor? He ought for that very reason to stand by the Gospel of the Lord, having through the Gospel attained unto the Lord's glory. For the Lord says, "to whom much is given, of him shall much be required," the proportion of obedience required is measured by the degree of dignity conceded. May none ever perish through the example of a confessor! May no man learn injustice, insolence, or perfidy, from a confessor's conduct! Is any a confessor? ”

“ No sign of all their loveliness avows;
If, set upon Life's consecrated brows,
Thy seal remains invisible to me,
And I, unmindful of the inner plea,
No other interest than self espouse,
Then stab my soul awake with conscious sin ”

“ The honest humble accusation of all deadly sins constitutes the essential character of such confession or avowal of transgressions. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity." [32]
That interior and supernatural contrition is to be followed by the judicial sentence of a duly-appointed priest, to whom confession of all deadly sins has been previously made, is the unanimous teaching of the Christian writers from the earliest date. ”

“ That it was a great pity for a man to be obliged to tell another, meaning the Confessor, everything he did, and that it would be better to speak into a hole and stop it up, for ‘what good did confession do?’ That he went to confession but once a year, signifying that but for constraint he would not go at all. ”

“ Since God wipes out from remembrance the sins He has pardoned, the confessor, being God’s representative, must treat what he has heard as not known to him. The obligation of the seal is so strict that no one may dispense from it, that neither Probabilism nor epieikeia may be applied to it, and that no exception is allowed unless the penitent himself freely, unmistakably and for a serious reason gives permission for it to the confessor. ”

“ During the first year that I remained under the direction of this Father, I confined myself entirely to the accusation of my sins, thinking that nothing else should be introduced at confession, but having heard a pious girl say that it was not right to practise corporal austerities without permission from the confessor, I applied for it to mine, and he then regulated the amount of these, as well as the number of my confessions and communions. ”

“ Instead of brotherly confession one to another, or the pastoral sympathy of a fatherly elder, the religious mind of the day was instructed in an awful mysterious sacrament of confession, which gave to some human being a divine right to unlock the most secret chambers of the soul, to scrutinize and direct its most veiled and intimate thoughts, and, standing in God's stead, to direct the current of its most sensitive and most mysterious emotions. ”

“ Our Lord says that he will confess before his heavenly Father them that shall confess him before men. (Matt. x. 32.) The Church of England can bless God for having honoured her with many confessors, especially during the persecution which was, under the usurpation of Oliver Cromwell, raised against her by Presbyterians, Independents, and Infidels. In the time of Queen Mary, also, there were confessors, as well as martyrs.
CONFESSOR, in the Romish Church, is a priest who receives confession. (See Auricular Confession.) ”

“ As far as we can gather from the testimony of those who have confessed and heard confessions as Anglicans, we should say that confession is often an actual torture to the soul; that penances are often imposed altogether without proportion to their cause; that a kind of obedience unknown among Catholics is claimed and is rendered. ”

“ Have you got that seal of a visible righteousness and every-day purity to confirm your assertion that you belong to Christ? Is it woven into the whole length of your being, like the scarlet thread that is spun into every Admiralty cable as a sign that it is Crown property? God's seal, visible to me and to nobody else, is my consciousness that I am His; but that consciousness is vindicated and delivered from the possibility of illusion or hypocrisy, only when it is checked and fortified by the outward evidence of the holy life which the Spirit of God has wrought. ”

“ The practice of confession, however, is not quite extinct, particularly among the inferior classes of society, and it is natural that the clergy should represent it as absolutely necessary to the salvation of souls, looking to the great advantages which they themselves derive from it. By means of the sacrament of confession, the confessor makes himself the absolute master of the conscience of his penitent,—not merely of his own secrets, but of those of his whole family ”

“ But when we ask the brethren, as we frequently do, to speak in sacrament meetings, we wish them, if they have injured their neighbors, to confess their wrongs; but do not tell about your nonsensical conduct that nobody knows of but yourselves. Tell to the public that which belongs to the public. If you have sinned against the people, confess to them. If you have sinned against a family or a neighborhood, go to them and confess. If you have sinned against your Ward, confess to your Ward. If you have sinned against one individual, take that person by yourselves and make your confession to him. ”