“someone asked Dr. M. Luther and said: If a pastor and father confessor had absolved a woman who had killed her child, and it was later revealed and made known by other people, would the preacher also have to testify to the judge if he were asked about it?  Then he [Luther] answered: Absolutely not!  For one must distinguish between churchly and worldly government since she has confessed it not to me but to the Lord Christ, and if Christ keeps a secret, I should also keep it secret and say nothing more than: I have heard nothing; if Christ has heard something, let Him tell it” (XXII,879).  (Walther’s Pastorale, 126-127)

C.S. Lewis

Lewis’ ability to ferret out those sins which lie hidden, like tiny cancers, so close to a man’s heart probably owes a great deal to a decision made near the time he thought of writing The Screwtape Letters.  Though Lewis’ theology was ‘high’ from the standpoint of being completely and utterly orthodox [me: well, mostly], he had not been brought up to make auricular confessionsn to a priest—except, that is, for the ‘general confessions’ contained in the services of Matins, Evensong and Holy Communion. The difficulty he found with these Prayer Book confessions is that one could be as specific or (as is usually the case) as ‘general’ as one likes. It was shortly after Lewis conceived the idea of his Letters that he was attracted by the Exhortation in the service of Holy Communion  which states that if any man ‘cannot quiet his own conscience’ he may go to a priest and ‘open his grief’ in order that he ‘may receive the benefit of absolutioin together with ghostly counsel and advice’. He decided to do just this and on 24 October 1940 he wrote to his friend Sister Penelope of the Community of St Mary the Virgin in Wantage saying, ‘I am going to make my first confession next week . . .  The DECISION to do so was one of the hardest I have ever made . . . I begin to be afraid that I am merely indulging in an orgy of egoism.’ Some years later he told Walter Hooper that a moment after he dropped the letter into the pillar-box he got cold feet and tried to fish it out. As this turned out to be impossible he felt he had no course but to go through with the confession and, so, hied himself down to the Anglican priests of the Society of St John the Evangelist in Cowley—popularly known as the ‘Cowley Dads’—where he was given a directeur [in italics] whom he made his regular confessor till the priest’s death many years later. Shortly after his first confession, he reported back to Sister Penelope (4 Nov. 1940): ‘Well—we have come through the wall of fire and find ourselves (somewhat to our surprise) still alive and even well.  The suggestion about an orgy of egoism turns out, like all the enemy propaganda, to have just a grain of truth in it, but I have no doubt that the proper method of dealing with that is to continue the practice, as I intend to do. For after all, everything—even virtue—even prayer—has its dangers and if one heeds the grain of truth in the enemy propaganda one can never do anything at all.’ [C.S.  Lewis: A Biography by Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper, Copyright © 1974 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, pp. 197-198]

I’ve reread carefully my favorites (Luther, Bonhoeffer and Thurian):  none

will allow you or any other engaged in the ministry of confession to speak

outside of the confessional or to take actions outside of the confessional

prompted by your knowledge of confessional material

Why would I say that?

“It is Christ who sits there, Christ who listens, Christ who

speaks.........not a man.”  Luther

Even if you know that something you could have said or done may have

forestalled some other ill, and no matter what the personal burden it may

cause for you: “The ministry of confession involves this self-giving and

this torture of

the whole of one’s being.”  Thurian

What is the pastor to DO:

“Upon the weakness of the believer the confessor should have such

compassion that it makes him weak himself; he must share the troubles and

sufferings and so understand the situation of the sinner that he can carry

his burden with him to cast it on Christ.”  Thurian

not call 911

not notify the county well-keeper

The ONLY actions allowed to the pastor are:  to listen and to provide admonition with compassion, to pray and to retain or to forgive sins.

Anything else is heterodox to the ministry of confession

We may say the pastor’s logic and wisdom tell him that he should act pre-emptively to inform others to avert disaster or to provide remedy:  If the burden has been brought to Christ, it rests where it rightly belongs.  We know how Scripture regards the wisdom of man!

“It is the duty of the confessor to keep with the utmost scrupulousness the

promise which the Church requires of him at his consecration.  This is not

only a matter of refraining from repeating a private confession, which goes

with saying. His whole attitude, his words and gestures, as well as ANY

MEASURES HE MAY BE CALLED UPON TO TAKE ELSEWHERE WITH REGARD TO A PERSON

WHO HAS MADE HIS CONFESSION TO HIM must be such that they will in no way

betray the confession that has been made.”  Thurian

“The confessor cannot use the knowledge acquired at the holy tribunal to do

anything that might prejudice the penitent or shake the confidence of the

faithful in the irrefragable silence of the confessor.” Thurian

What SHOULD he do?

“Obviously the confessor owes it to himself to exhort the penitent to the

reparation of his faults.  But whether his exhortation is heeded or not, he

can in now way betray the secret or act in such a way that the secret might

ever be revealed or even its nature suggested.”  Thurian

“THE CONFESSOR HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE SIN CONFESSED except as God’s representative in the special ministry of confession.  He has no knowledge of it as a man, as a Christian or even as an ecclesiastical authority.”

“A pastor can NEVER disclose the content of any information confessed as a part of this rite.” (REv. H.L. Senkbeil - talking with his Key to Life class, Fall 1996.)

I will personally rely upon clergy to uphold the use of “NEVER.”  Unless your perspective on confidentiality is absolute - individual confession and absolution is not a safe place for me, or for anyone else I would suppose.  How awful that a person would be afraid to confess a sin before God, in the presence of His servant, for fear that social or civil action would ensue.   I don’t believe there are ANY exceptions—no matter how vigorously  my “common sense” may lobby against such absolutism.

And, by the way, if there are “any exceptions” the civil court will eat you alive when you pretend to claim that our liturgical church body honors the privacy of the confessional.

The resources noted in the paper on recovering the practice of confession include the following:

Harold L. Senkbeil, Dying to Live: The Power of Forgiveness (St. Louis:

Concordia Publishing House,      1994), 70-90.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Spiritual Care, trans. Jay C. Rochelle, (Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1985).

Walter J. Koehler, Counseling and Confession: (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1982).

Fred L. Precht, “Confession and Absolution:  Sin and Forgiveness,” in Fred L. Precht, ed., Lutheran           Worship:  History and Practice (St. Louis:

Concordia Publishing House, 1993), 322-386.

Thurian, Max.  Confession.  London:  Mowbray (Revised edition published in 1985). (Available        only      through through AmazonUK.com (This is a must read for clergy!)