Secrecy and the confession of sins

I HAVE been following the correspondence in your letters column recently concerning “Crimen Sollicitationis”.

The requirements for secrecy contained in that document do not seem to merit the term “cover-up”.

Confession of sins to a Catholic priest is governed by very strict rules of secrecy. The priest is obliged to keep the secrets which he hears from penitents in the confessional, even if these involve confessions of murder, armed robbery, or rape.