From the Rt Revd Dr Colin Buchanan
Sir, - At the end of your report that "Synod will debate the
confidentiality of the confessional" (News,
31 October), you ask at for your readers to vote on "Should the
seal of the confessional be absolute?" In this question, your
terminology goes beyond anything in the report about the projected
guidelines, though I recognise that the words you use are in
frequent currency.
We should, however, surely be wary of giving too great a
substance to concepts that form no part of our formularies, and are
clearly borrowed uncritically from the Church of Rome. To be
precise: at the Reformation, the Church of England retained no rite
that could be called the "confessional"; it stated in Article XXV
that "Penance" had arisen from the "corrupt following of the
apostles"; and it provided for someone troubled by some particular
scruple or sin to go to a "learned minister of God's word" and "by
the ministry God's word . . . receive comfort and the benefit of
absolution" - clearly a pastoral interview with the Bible open
between minister and troubled person.
The special moving of a dying person similarly to confess any
particular matter on his or her conscience had none of the
characteristics of the Roman confessional; for it came in the open
context of a brief liturgy at the bedside with other members of the
family present.
The requirement in Canon 113 of 1603 is a requirement of proper
confidentiality in ministering at a private interview, but it has
no mention of a "seal", and the inability of the Canon Law revisers
in the 1960s to find any agreed way of bringing it up to date meant
that no further definition of confidentiality such as to amount to
a "seal" came into our formularies.
Common Worship admittedly makes provision (as a way
commended by the bishops, not as an authorised service) for the
"Reconciliation of a Penitent", but this is simply a suggested way
of meeting pastoral needs, and there are many other ways, and of
course no mention of a "seal".
It is not simply a matter of terminology. As I understand it,
Roman Canon Law says the seal is absolutely "inviolable", and it
sets that inviolability into a carefully defined context of the
"confessional". Without the definition of a "confessional", there
can be no application of a "seal".
The Church of England lacks both, and so would be wise to avoid
the terminology. That, however, in no sense diminishes the concern
for the highest possible degree of confidentiality in one-to-one
forms of ministry, and guidelines that chart the possible limits on
such confidentiality are much to be valued.
COLIN BUCHANAN
21 The Drive
Leeds
LS17 7QB