Q. I feel uneasy going to confession when I know the priest is using his cell phone in the confessional. Accidentally hitting the wrong key and a confession could be recorded. Why is this practice allowed?
A. The Church protects the Seal of Confession with everything She has. Priests have died rather than betray the Seal. Every priest understands that if it’s a choice between jail or breaking the Seal, we chose jail—no if, ands, or buts. The Church does not want anything to stand in the way of someone approaching the sacrament and so She uses everything within Her power to ensure that there are no obstacles (like being worried the priest will tell your neighbor what you said in confession) to someone encountering God’s mercy in confession.
In simplest terms, the Seal is considered broken when a priest connects a person to a sin. The clearest example of this would be something like “Jim Bob, did you know Joe Bob was stealing Bob Joe’s cows? He told me in confession.” Even if the priest didn’t mention that he learned the information in confession, it is still a violation, as he has directly connected a person to a sin. Even if he doesn’t use a name but instead says “your neighbor” or “your brother” or “the president”—so long as the person’s status makes it a clear connection between sin and penitent, it’s a violation.
There is such a thing as an indirect violation of the Seal which, while serious, is not as serious, but that’s a matter for another “Ask the Register” article. Sufficient for now is the reality that the Seal cannot be broken, and priests must protect it, even above their own well-being.
The responsibility of protecting what is said in confession extends to laypersons who may overhear what is said in a confession. Every layperson (whether they all realize it or not) is bound to the Secret, the term used for any information overheard in the context of a confession. Violation of the Secret results in punishment, not excluding excommunication if the case warrants it (CIC c. 1386 § 2). Unlike priests who, when they break the Seal, are excommunicated latae sententiae, that is, by the law itself (meaning automatically) a layperson who breaks the Secret would have to go through a penal process to be excommunicated.
I don’t mention this to trigger anyone’s concerns that he or she broke the Secret, but rather to emphasize that the Church takes protecting what is said in confession very seriously. So it should come as no surprise that the Church also has a big problem with confessions being recorded: “Any person who by means of any technical device makes a recording of what is said by the priest or by the penitent in a sacramental confession, either real or simulated, or who divulges it through the means of social communication, is to be punished according to the gravity of the offence, not excluding, in the case of a cleric, by dismissal from the clerical state.” (CIC c. 1386 § 3).
Getting to the question at hand, concerns around cell phones inadvertently recording or relaying the content of a confession has led many dioceses to forbid priests from having their cell phones, smart watches or other devices in the confessional. Bishop Conley recently made explicit a ban on priests having cell phones in confessionals in the Diocese of Lincoln. So, in answer to the “why is this practice allowed” part of the question—it is not.
As a priest who would regularly bring my cellphone into the confessional with me, I feel compelled to say in defense of priests, it wasn’t to text, or to read the news (though I must confess to checking the occasional Husker football game score when no one was in the confessional), but to do one of three things: know what time it was so I would know when to leave for Mass, read the readings for the day, or pray the breviary.
While one can accomplish these things without a phone, using a phone is just more convenient than carrying a breviary, and a missal, and wearing a watch. But now that it is explicitly forbidden in the Diocese of Lincoln, convenient or not, priests are not to have cellphones in confessionals.
This question was answered by Father Caleb La Rue, chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
