impressions of the institution; no priest would venture to express an unfavourable opinion upon it, or even any opinion of a circumstantial character, for fear of alarming his co-religionists.
Yet in point of fact there is no reason in the nature of things why even an actual confessor should not write a most ample and detailed account of his experiences. The ‘seal of confession’ is not merely a sacramental obligation, it is a natural obligation which no ex-priest would ever dream of violating. But the obligation has certain limits which are explicitly denned in theological works and are practically observed by priests. The obligation is merely to maintain such secrecy about confessional matters as shall prevent the knowledge of the crime of a definite individual: within those limits the obligation is absolute and admits of no possible excuse in the smallest matter. The priest is not even allowed to use a probability in his own favour in this question: he is forbidden under an obligation of the gravest possible character to say a single word or perform any action whatever from which the declaration of his penitent might possibly be inferred. Hence he cannot, under any conceivable circumstances, act upon the information he has received. If a priest learned from the confession of his servant that she had put poison in the wine he was to take for dinner, Catholic theology directs that he must not even change the bottle, but act precisely as if he had heard nothing. I never heard of a
