A priest is never allowed to disclose what he heard in a sacramental confession, Vatican officials emphasized in talks during a conference this week on the confessional seal.

The applies even after the penitent dies, said Msgr. Krzysztof Nykiel, the regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary. The seal is absolute, Msgr. Nykiel said; it cannot be broken if the penitent gives his permission to the confessor.

Any violation of the confessional seal is punished with excommunication, participants in the Vatican conference were reminded. Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary, said that Church law on this question has remained unchanged for 800 years—except insofar as it has occasionally been tightened, answering all new questions by affirming the absolute bar to revealing confessed sins.

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