Seal of the Confessional and the Anglican Church

The Seal of the Confessional is a principle within Anglicanism which protects the words spoken during confession. Confession has certain censures on disclosure as there is an understanding among the clergy that there is an inviolable confidence between the individual priest and the penitent. This principle should not be confused with the rarer practice of lay confession, nor with the public confession of sins which is an element of most eucharistic liturgies throughout the Anglican Communion. The "Seal of the Confessional" refers specifically to the private confession of sins by an individual, in the presence of a priest, the form of which is regulated by the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and later liturgical sources.

In the Decretum of Gratian who compiled the edicts of previous councils and the principles of Church law which he published about 1151, we find the following declaration of the law as to the seal of confession:

Let the priest who dares to make known the sins of his penitent be deposed

- and he goes on to say that the violator of this law should be made a lifelong, ignominious wanderer.

Canon 21 of the Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215), binding on the whole Church, laid down the obligation of secrecy in the following words:

Let the priest absolutely beware that he does not by word or sign or by any manner whatever in any way betray the sinner: but if he should happen to need wiser counsel let him cautiously seek the same without any mention of person. For whoever shall dare to reveal a sin disclosed to him in the tribunal of penance we decree that he shall be not only deposed from the priestly office but that he shall also be sent into the confinement of a monastery to do perpetual penance

Notably, neither this canon nor the law of the Decretum purports to enact for the first time the secrecy of confession. The great fifteenth century English canonist William Lyndwood speaks of two reasons why a priest is bound to keep secret a confession, the first being on account of the sacrament because it is almost (quasi) of the essence of the sacrament to keep secret the confession.

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