Don Filippo Di Giacomo spoke on the Friday from Republic on a particularly delicate issue, that of “Sacramental seal” which prevents the priest from revealing what he has learned in the secrecy of the confessional, under penalty of excommunication and dismissal from the clerical state in canon law, or one year in prison and a fine for criminal law.
“According to the accusers – writes Don Filippo Di Giacomo – this ‘seal’ is found in most of the silences that have occurred on the abuses committed by priests. In about ten countries, Anglo-Saxon and not such as Spain and France, the legislative assemblies have voted, or are about to do so, laws that oblige those who receive the confession of an abuser of a minor to report him “. Then Di Giacomo took care of the intervention on the question of Pope francesco, which took place last March 25 at the conclusion of the 32nd course on the Internal Forum organized by the Apostolic Penitentiary. “The seal – declared the Pontiff – is from the moment in which one begins to the moment of the end. But what if you half-talked about that thing? Nothing, everything is under seal ”.
“He only spoke of ‘some Catholic association’ – Don Filippo pointed out – in which ‘a relativization of the sacramental seal is entering: the seal is sin, but then everything that comes after sin or before sin, the confessor he tells his superiors’. What is meant by ‘some association’ is known in the Church. And if the Pope knows it too, the Vatican could stop pretending not to know ”.
