The Seal of Confession, as discussed in Part 2 of our Sacraments series, ensures that a priest cannot, in any circumstance; tell anyone what you said in confession, divulge the penance he gave you, act on any of the information you may have shared during your confession or speak to you about your sins outside of the confessional.
Were he to violate the Seal of Confession he is automatically excommunicated and can only be reinstated by our Holy Father.
So then, just how far would a priest go to protect the Seal of Confession? What if some one confessed to murder?
The priest
Father Dumoulin was a Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Aix, France in 1889. A good and holy man, he was well respected by his parishioners.
On this particular day, a pious and devout parishioner who was also the president of a local Catholic charitable organisation, Mrs Blanchard, called in to see Fr Dumoulin and withdraw 12,000 Francs that had been deposited with the parish priest. This request he humbly obliged.
Mrs Blanchard did not return home that day. Worried, her family began searching for her. Four days later her body was found in a cell in the old monastery. She was stabbed most violently and the money was gone.
Fr Dumoulin, by his own admission, was the last person to see her alive.
The Evidence
Police searched the presbytery and discovered a knife with human blood on it, and Mrs Blanchard’s handkerchief which was believed to have contained the money.
Suspicion fell on Fr Dumoulin immediately and he was tried and convicted on the circumstantial evidence.
He was handed down the sentence of life imprisonment, rather than a death sentence, partly due to the nature of the evidence and to his previous unblemished and outstanding character.
Needless to say that Fr Dumoulin’s parishioners no longer held him in such high regard.
The Murderer
Some three years later however, a startling revelation came to light. A man named Kloser, who worked as a sexton (in charge of the maintenance at the Church) at Fr Dumoulin’s former parish, confessed publically that it was he who murdered Mrs Blanchard.
Using extensive detail he described how, knowing that Mrs Blanchard had a large sum of money on her, he grabbed a knife from the presbytery kitchen and ambushed the woman in the corridor, stabbed her to death and then threw her body in the cell where it was discovered four days later.
He then hid the knife and handkerchief in the presbytery and consequently kept a low profile.
The Confession
Kloser went on to recount that the day after Mrs Blanchard’s body was found, he was overcome with remorse and went to Fr Dumoulin for Confession where he recounted his murderous act.
When Fr Dumoulin was later accused of the murder, he made no attempt to excuse himself by casting Kloser as the murderer because that would have violated the Seal of Confession.
In view of Kloser’s full confession to the Supreme Court, Fr Dumoulin was released from prison and returned to his parish.
Fr Dumoulin’s story may seem to be an extreme case, nonetheless it is a striking example to the lengths priests must go to in order to protect the Seal of Confession, because this Sacrament is between you and God only.
Originally posted 2014-10-29 22:07:53.