1. Most people know that the seal of the confessional prohibits disclosure of anything heard in confession, but are there other ways of violating it?
Yes, two ways, directly and indirectly. Directly would be disclosing that John Doe confessed to embezzling funds, indirectly would be saying something like “Adultery was the first sin ever confessed to me." John Doe then discloses at some point that he was the first person to ever go to confession to this priest.
2. Is it permissible to disclose whether you have heard someone's confession? For example, the police or a divorce lawyer ask if you heard John Doe's confession, can you answer that question?
Yes, but it would be imprudent. Better to say “I can't answer.”
3. If I were to confess to you that I was the killer of Robert Kennedy and it was not Sirhan Sirhan, and you were convinced that I was not crazy, but the actual killer, what advice would you give? Sirhan is rotting away in jail. Would this factor in?
There is no requirement to turn yourself in, but in charity you should. The priest cannot require you to turn yourself in.
4. How does the seminary prepare students to hear confessions? Is it strictly an academic exercise or do you have “role playing,” for lack of a better term, to drive home the reality of it?
No practice was done at this priest's seminary, but apparently it is done in some others.
5. Do you have a preference for face to face or secret confessions? If you have such a preference, is it personal taste or do you think one has advantages over the other?
No preference, but face to face contributes to building humility.
6. Assuming that new priests might be shocked by hearing certain things, does there come a point where nothing can shock, if it ever did?
Yes, after five years or so you have heard just about everything.
7. Is it possible for non-Catholics (i.e. you are aware of it) to come to confession and if so, can they be given absolution?
If they are something like Greek, Russian, Ukrainian Orthodox or Old Catholics and cannot get to their own priest it is permissible. If they are Protestants it would be possible, say, point of death, but highly unusual.
8. Do the sexes approach confession differently? I ask this from my experience that it seems there are many more men in line than women and the men seem to take less time.
I'm not going to answer that question.
9. I would suppose that the sins of lying, stealing, fornicating are constant favorites throughout history and that some sins are faddish. Do you think that such things as camera phones and on-line pornography or just ready availability of trashy literature has changed things?
Yes. Pornography used to be something that had to be sought out in seedy areas and most people were embarrassed to be seen going into the shops. Now it is everywhere and nobody has to leave their house.
10. Years ago there were admonitions against such things as gossip, calumny, detraction and similar things, but not so much today. In the secular press we hear about “bullying,” but when things are not mentioned very often, do most people cease to think they are sins?
People have more anonymity today than years ago and can commit all kinds of sins without concern of anybody knowing.
11. What do you think about priests assigning what I would call silly penances. For instance, a friend of mine was once told to take a bubble bath for his penance and I have heard of crazier things.
Silly penances should not be given.
12. Are there handbooks for confessors? I don't mean handbooks of moral theology and such things, but handbooks of how to give advice?
Yes, but they are beyond my own experience.
13. I tend to think – I stress think, I have no evidence – that people who go to confession have less need of a psychiatrist, if there is ever such a need. Do you think this is true, not true or no opinion?
Yes, but sometimes there is a need for professional help or drugs or such things as that.
14. Have you ever seen the Alfred Hitchcock movie I Confess, and if so, how realistically does it represent the seal of confession and Fr. Logan's predicament?
I have not seen it.
15. Can a penitent ever be directed to turn himself in for a crime he has confessed?
No, it is asking too heroic a virtue.
16. “Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain they are retained.” (St. John 20:23) is pretty much the commission for the power to forgive sins, but when and why would you withhold absolution?
If someone is committing a mortal sin and refuses to stop they can't be absolved. Someone practicing contraception or patronizing whore houses, robbing banks and so forth cannot be absolved without resolving to stop such things.
17. Is a layman who overhears somebody's confession bound by the seal just as a priest is?
Yes.
18. Does hearing confessions alter the view you had of human nature before becoming a priest?
Yes, it shows you the weakness and fragility of human nature.
19. If you are traveling outside of your diocese and somebody approaches you in an airport or train station to hear their confession, can you do so, or do you not have faculties there?
Yes, it is assumed you have universal faculties for such things.
20. I know of a guy who went to a priest that could read souls and in fact the priest mentioned something to him that he had no way of knowing. It was an incident that had occurred in Vietnam. Have you ever heard of this, do you believe in it and have you ever known anybody that had that gift/power?
Yes, some well known priests such as Padre Pio had this ability. I have never known anybody who had it.
21. I knew an old priest – now dead – that told me a priest can never mention something to you that you told him in confession. For example, somebody is constantly getting drunk and the priest sees a program about a surefire cure for drunkenness, he can not say to the person, “I saw a program on a guaranteed cure for drunkenness” if the person confessed that to him. The person would have to bring it up first. Is this correct?
Yes.
22. Is it the case that you can divulge something you heard in confession if you didn't learn of it in confession? For instance, you are in the bank when John Dillinger comes in and robs the bank. John later comes to you and confesses that he robbed the bank. The police arrest John and ask you if he robbed the bank. You know that he did because you were there, not because he told you in confession.
A situation like this is always difficult and you would have to be very careful what you said.
23. There are nine ways of being an accessory to someone else's sin: by counsel, command, consent, provocation, praise or flattery, concealment, partaking, silence, defense of the ill done. Would it be unusual for someone to confess violating these? Do you think these are widely known?
Would buying stolen goods be partaking, or something else? Would a person's not mentioning something such as an adulterous affair that he is aware of to the offended party be concealment? When would something like that be concealment and when would it be detraction to make it known?
Buying stolen goods would be partaking. If the secretary and the CEO are having an affair it might be imprudent to tell the secretary's husband, but it wouldn't be detraction.
24. When someone is studying to become Catholic, how much of an obstacle is confession, or is it?
I don't know. Ask them.
25. Does having heard confessions make it easier – generally – to go to confession yourself? Does it make it harder or make no difference?
I don't really know.
26. In the first centuries of the Church there were fairly severe public penances and a process called exomologesis that entailed sackcloth and ashes, kneeling outside the Church and so on. Do you think that things have gotten too easy or that abolition of such things was best?
I think the abolition of the severe penances was a good thing and also allowing multiple confessions instead of a once in a lifetime occurrence.
These are the answers of a priest of about 27 years.
