Friday, August 19, 2011

I'm Confessin'

I just saw I Confess, a Hitchcock film that's not especially well-remembered though it has a cult (as many Hitchcock films do).  The central situation isn't bad--a priest receives the confession of a murderer, and later is tried for that murder.  His vow doesn't allow him to exonerate himself.

Montgomery Clift sleepwalks through the role.  Hitchcock loved movie stars, who brought their persona, and their glamor, to the screen.  Clift was a star, but he was a method actor, who didn't really fit the mechanical demands of the director.

Not that another actor would have made the film work. I think it was done in by the Production Code. Back then, no Hollywood film could mock religion.  So the priest has to make the right move every step of the way.  There's no question he won't break the confidence of the confessional.  But also, Clift's character is involved with Anne Baxter's character, providing a motive for the murder.  Except he's not allowed to do anything wrong in their relationship.  It happened before he found his calling, and even when he returns (before he's a priest) after the war and sees her, he doesn't know she's married.  (Not that they do anything.)

The other problem is under the Code the good must be rewarded and the bad punished, so the priest ultimately gets off while the bad guy (and even his wife, who helped him but ultimately turns around) must die in the end.

I wasn't surprised to discover in the original play, the priest is executed.  Furthermore, he has a lover and an illegitmate child.

By the way, I doubt this situation has ever come up, but if it did, somehow I think the Church would allow the priest to at least explain that someone confessed the murder to him.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

This Code sounds like a nice place to live.

1:54 AM, August 19, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's a nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to watch movies there.

10:38 AM, August 19, 2011  
Anonymous Lawrence King said...

y the way, I doubt this situation has ever come up, but if it did, somehow I think the Church would allow the priest to at least explain that someone confessed the murder to him.

Of course, the exact plot of the movie is fictional, but certainly there have many times in the past thousand years that a priest has been in a situation such that he stands to benefit from revealing confessed information.

The nature of the benefit -- pecuniary, personal, or the ability to more effectively defend himself (or another) against a false charge -- is not relevant to whether the information can be revealed. Indeed, there is plenty of case-law that establishes that a priest may not violate the seal of confession to save his own life.

The only way that the information could be revealed is if the priest were able to do so without directly or even indirectly divulging the identity of the penitent. In the case of this movie, it seems very unlikely that this would be the case, since the priest's statement would reveal that the true killer was someone who had visited the priest for confession. Certainly any police detective would find that information very helpful! So it would be a very rare situation in which the priest could say "Someone whom I won't name confessed to me that he shot Bobby Kennedy."

On the other hand, I've heard priests make general comments about what they hear in confessions in the aggregate; e.g., a priest in a sermon mentioned that on a recent high school retreat the most commonly confessed sin was gossip. I'm actually not comfortable with priests divulging even this. The purpose of the seal is that because some people are extremely reticent to confess their sins, there needs to be an equally extreme level of confidence among the people of the Catholic Church that their priest will not repeat what they tell him.

6:38 PM, August 20, 2011  
Anonymous Lawrence King said...

Of course, if a priest does violate the seal, the Catholic Church no longer has the ability to punish him in the way they used to.

The Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215 CE, decreed: "Let the priest absolutely beware that he does not by word or sign or by any manner whatever in any way betray the sinner. If he should happen to need wiser counsel [in cases where the priest is unable to adequately judge the penitent] let him cautiously seek counsel without any mention of person. For we decree that whoever shall dare to reveal a sin disclosed to him in the tribunal of penance shall be not only deposed from the priestly office but shall also be sent into the confinement of a monastery to do perpetual penance."

Compare that to the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which states: "A confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal incurs a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; one who does so indirectly is to be punished according to the gravity of the delict."

6:40 PM, August 20, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's all fine and good, but the question is will the priest who breaks the confidentiality go to hell, or at least think he will.

7:12 PM, August 20, 2011  
Anonymous Lawrence King said...

Breaking the secrecy of the confessional is objectively a grave sin. In virtually every case, it would be subjectively a mortal sin. But if the priest were to subsequently repent he could be forgiven this sin; however, the canon about "excommmunication reserved to the Apostolic See" means that such a priest cannot simply confess this to some other priest or even his own bishop and receive absolution -- he has to go to the Vatican and admit what has happened. But once that is done, if he is sorry he can be granted absolution. So no, he will not necessary go to hell!


And I there could be very rare instances in which this sin, although objectively grave, would not subjectively be a mortal sin at all.

5:30 PM, August 22, 2011  
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