Have priests ever gotten into legal trouble due to their refusal to reveal a penitents sins?
Yes. St. John Nepomucene (13401393) was tortured and then drowned by King Wenceslaus IV of Bohemia because he would not reveal the sins confessed by the queen. In 1813, a Jesuit priest from New York, Father Anthony Kohlman, S.J., was called into court to testify concerning matters he had learned about during a confession. When he refused to testify, Father Kohlman was tried for contempt of court. The issue was finally settled when the State of New York passed a law exempting priests from revealing any information obtained in confession. In another episode, a simple French priest, Abb Dumoulin, gave a large sum of money to a woman who was later found murdered at a nearby monastery. A knife dripping with her blood was found in the rectory kitchen. Abb Dumoulin was arrested, convicted, and sent to prison in New Caledonia. However, after three years, the church sexton admitted that he had killed the woman for her money and confessed the crime to Abb Dumoulin. Keeping the seal inviolable, t
