A concerned Catholic asked,
"I would be very grateful for information about the exact nature of the confessional seal. The reason for my interest is this: several years ago, I had a very bad experience in the confessional with a priest whom I had thought I could trust completely. He isn't a traditional priest, although the Old Rite is celebrated by him or a member of his community every week. The community's approach to liturgy is as orthodox as you can get in this country, and because of that people flood in from miles around to attend their NO Sunday High Mass. He heard my confession at a very difficult time for me and my family (they were finding it very hard to adjust to my flying the nest, and relations were at breaking point). Well, the confession followed the usual lines - I forget the exact details. But afterwards he approached my mother and told her that he had heard my confession and that as a result he was somewhat concerned.
This was a disaster from the point of view of my relationship with my parents. Naturally they wanted to know what was wrong, and I refused to talk about it. It was shattering from my personal point of view, and because I was so preoccupied with the practical ramifications of this leakage I didn't consider the wider implications until much later.
What I would be interested to hear from other members is whether this could be considered a breaking of the seal of the confession (after all, he said nothing about what I had actually said), and if so, whether there are any steps I should take about it at this late stage."
Here is what I told them:
The priest was definitely wrong for even indirectly breaking the seal.
He is not allowed to let his behavior be influenced in any way by what he hears in the confessional.
If someone confesses to a priest, "I have poisoned the Mass wine." and he can't convince him to undo the damage (obviously, he won't get absolution unless he repents and dumps out the wine) -- the priest will have to say Mass (perhaps pouring a little less wine in the Chalice than usual) and hope for the best. He may have to be a martyr for the confessional seal.
But if he went out and said, "I think that wine is old, we need to throw it out." he would be breaking the seal, since that is odd behavior, and at any rate he wasn't about to do that before he heard the confession.
Let's put it this way -- if the man who made such a confession was a goth, and many people in the congregation knew that, many of them would put two and two together. ("The goth goes to confession, then after confessions the priest has the altar servers replace the Mass wine. I bet he told him he poisoned the wine!")
Sure, most people might not be that observant, but the point is, the seal of confessional is a grave responsibility and nothing can be left to chance. Otherwise no one would go to confession.
Matthew