(11 Aug 2014, 5:58 pm)marxistafozzski wrote Thanks Adam and god bless you my friend...Just out of interest and rather stupid, if you goto your Padre to confess your sins, how far does confidentiality go, if you confess to him your a murderer, would the padre have to keep the secret or can confidentiality only go so far...Just a random thought lol

I'm really not sure haha. I suppose it's a moral dilemma for the priest. If a person confesses, then they have entrusted the priest to remain silent about it. Only they would know about the murder, and the priest has a moral duty to remain silent about it due to the nature of confessions.

However, there will always be that confession playing on the back of the priest's mind, which may lead him to tell the police about it, so one more criminal will be put behind bars. Furthermore, in his Natural Law theory, Aquinas (one of the most influential people on the Catholic Church) lists 5 Primary Precepts which all humans must follow, one of them being "Preservation of Life", so by reporting the confession of the murderer, the priest will be fulfilling Aquinas' basic moral principles (I'm sorry, but this is what a two-year A-level course in Theology does to you).

So all in all, it is unimaginably difficult for a priest if put in that situation. I for one certainly wouldn't know what to do.