FRONT ROYAL (VA)
LifeSiteNews
July 5, 2019
By Diane Montagna
Rome – Priests are called to defend the seal of Confession even to the point of “shedding blood,” the Vatican has said amid increasing pressure from secular authorities to force clergy to reveal what they hear during the sacrament.
In a note released this week by the Apostolic Penitentiary (the tribunal of the Roman curia tasked with overseeing matters related to the internal forum), Cardinal Mauro Piacenza said “the confessor’s defense of the sacramental seal, if it were necessary usque ad sanguinis effusionem, represents not only an act of dutiful ‘loyalty’ towards the penitent, but much more: a necessary witness – a ‘martyrdom’ — given directly to the salvific uniqueness and universality of Christ and the Church,” i.e. to the sacredness of the sacrament.
Cardinal Piacenza, who serves as Major Penitentiary, said the Vatican tribunal considered it “urgent” to reaffirm the “importance” and promote “a better understanding” of the seal of confession, which today he said is “widely understood or even, in some cases, opposed.”
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