From: Jennifer Formichelli [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

No confession is meant to reach anyone but he who is formally
authorised to hear it.
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PM> Do you mean no formal, sacramental confession, or any
    confession at all, as in a signed legal confession?
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JF> A sacramental confession--confession  is a sacrament, after all--is
sealed by the Seal of Confession, the breach of which is a mortal sin. This
point is crucial when looking at what happens between Guido and Dante, and
particularly in the fact that we do, in Inferno, hear this confession (not
lost, I am sure, on Eliot), in fact, of a confession: Guido's account is of
his confession to Boniface.
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PM> ??? Was Dante a priest? Did Guido's belief that his revelation
    was safe (except within the boundaries of hell) oblige Dante
    and Virgil to keep it a secret? Did Guido actually go through
    a formal confession with old Boneyface?

    Maybe I've missed a part of the conversation?

Cheers,
Peter.

Dr. Peter C. Montgomery
Dept. of English
Camosun College
3100 Foul Bay Rd.
Victoria, BC CANADA V8P 5J2
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www.camosun.bc.ca/~peterm