History Main / ConfessInConfidence

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean'': Enrico Pucci's StartOfDarkness was the result of a private confession. In 1988, back when he was training to be a priest, a woman mistaken him for an actual priest while he is cleaning the confession box. Despite Pucci trying to explain he wasn't an actual priest, the woman confesses that after her original baby died, she swapped the body for one of a pair of fraternal twins and raised him as her own. Unfortunately for Pucci, he finds out the son's true identity is [[spoiler:his supposedly dead twin Domonic, now going by Wes Bluemarine and dating [[SurpriseIncest their younger sister Perla]]]]. While he wasn't an actual priest, Pucci was still vowed to keep the confession a secret and can't simply tell the mother's son [[spoiler:that he's dating his biological sister]], forcing him to try to TakeAThirdOption to resolve the situation. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:a series of tragic events lead to Perla's death, Wes to become a destructive misogynist with his Stand Weather Report and forcing Pucci to steal his memories with his new Stand White Snake, and Pucci becoming convinced that [[GreaterScopeVillain DIO's]] [[CosmicReton Heaven Plan]] is the best course for humanity to overcome trauma]].

** Mike Ross faces a dilemma when a client confesses to him that he was stoned when he hit and killed someone with his car. Mike has just secured the client a nice plea bargain on the assumption that the death was purely accidental. Mike's parents were killed by a drunk driver and his conscience won't let him keep quiet about what he knows and thus sabotaging the deal, making a weak attempt at hiding how he found out. Katrina realizes that he's broken confidentiality and chooses to accept the plea bargain anyway, before calling him out on it in private. This one is incidentally okay since a plea bargain is conducted in court: a failure to report the information would violate Mike's duty of being honest to the tribunal, and would also possibly be suborning perjury (i.e. allowing someone to lie to the court). Of course, Mike isn't actually a lawyer anyway…

* Almost every chapter/episode of ''Manga/KaitouSaintTail'' has someone going to Seira's chapel for guidance, followed by Seira then taking their tale to Meimi so that Saint Tail can act on the information. Since most of them are simply people venting out their problems, only about a quarter of them are explicitly ones told in confidence (usually because the details of the case getting out would lead to something bad happening to the victim), Seira's routine violation of the other party's trust would be a major infraction for a novice nun.

* Pretty much every chapter/episode of ''Manga/KaitouSaintTail'' (the main exceptions are the second half of two-parters) has someone going to Seira's chapel for guidance, and Seira then taking their tale to Meimi so that Saint Tail can act on the information. While these are generally not strictly confessions (as they are about other people's misdeeds), Seira's routine violation of the other party's trust would be a major infraction for a novice nun.

* In one episode of ''Series/LawAndOrder'', a murder case hinges on whether a priest will break confidence and finger the man who confessed to him. And in case the decision wasn't hard enough, the victim in the case was also a priest.
** Several episodes have dealt with Priest confessions. One time, the "confession" was done when the person was walking with a priest. Another, the wife to the head of a [[ScaryAmoralReligion morally questionable sect]] tries to invoke this privilege with the Church's ''accountant'', but succeeded (Jack later noted judges often don't want to touch the subject of religious privilege).

* In season two of ''Series/BreakingBad'', Walt is briefly abducted by Tuco and covers up for it by claiming to have experienced a 'fugue state', letting himself be found naked in a supermarket to sell the lie. He then uses this trope in combination with ConfessToALesserCrime in order to convince his psychiatrist to approve his release from the hospital. After confirming that the therapist is ethics-bound to keep his secret, Walt admits that there was no fugue state, but lies and says he simply ran away because he was overwhelmed by the combination of his disease, Skyler's unplanned pregnancy, and their financial troubles.

* ''Series/{{CSI}}'' - A Catholic priest, bound by his confidentiality, at least tries to steer the investigators in the right direction. [[note]] A case of ArtisticLicenseReligion as the priest he was confessing to was the lover of the victim and was obviously taunting the priest. The priest would not have been bound by the confessional seal. [[note]]

* [[Magazine/PrivateEye Ian]] [[Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou Hislop]] has claimed in interviews that at one point during his long-standing feud with Piers Morgan, his vicar told him that the ''Daily Mirror'' had called wanting to know if he'd confessed "anything good." [[note]]Piers Morgan was a key player in the News of the World phone hacking scandal. At best this was a dig at Piers being willing to violate serious privacy laws for a scoop, at worst Ian wasn't joking.[[note]]

* ''Series/{{CSI}}'' - A Catholic priest, bound by his confidentiality, at least tries to steer the investigators in the right direction.

* [[Magazine/PrivateEye Ian]] [[Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou Hislop]] has claimed in interviews that at one point during his long-standing feud with Piers Morgan, his vicar told him that the ''Daily Mirror'' had called wanting to know if he'd confessed "anything good."

** Played more straight when Walt's wife Skyler begins to see through his lies and visits a divorce lawyer to discuss how she can separate from him without hurting their family in the process. Before confessing that she knows Walt is a drug dealer she asks the lawyer in question about the confidentiality issue, who points out that since she's a lawyer and not a cop; she only has her client's best interests at heart.

* Subverted in ''Film/ForYourEyesOnly'': After [[BigBad Kristatos]] has taken the [[MacGuffin ATAC]] from Bond, Bond goes into a confessional at a Greek Orthodox church and says "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned...", and it turns out the Priest is actually Q, who says "That's putting it mildly, 007.".

* Similarly, in ''Series/InspectorLewis'', a priest is unable to tell Lewis and Hathaway what the victim said to him in the confessional booth. But the priest then points out that the seal of the confession doesn't apply to things said ''outside'' the booth, and tries to give them some clues that way.

* ZigZagged in the Italian series ''Don Matteo''. The title character, a priest and amateur sleuth, is convinced that a man is a killer, and the man gets so annoyed with Don Matteo investigating that he goes to him in confession and says, "Yes, I killed that bastard, and now you won't be able to do anything about it because of the secret of confession!". Don Matteo is stumped for a bit but then tells the culprit that he would gladly be excommunicated if it meant putting the culprit behind bars. Then the culprit sees Don Matteo talking to the police and attacks him with a hammer, screaming "I'll kill you so you won't tell them I did it!". Don Matteo, however, wasn't telling on him, but simply [[ThePlan having a nice chat with his policeman friend...]]

* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' ran into this, where [[spoiler:one of the protagonist's clients actually is guilty and admits it, but the hero can't tell anyone. The assassin who was hired by Engarde kidnapped Maya and threatened to kill her if Phoenix didn't get Engarde off the hook]], so he couldn't say anything even if he was allowed to, or even drop the case. [[spoiler: He gets around it by presenting evidence to the assassin that Engarde planned to blackmail him, causing the assassin to target Engarde, causing Engarde to confess to the murder to stay protected in prison.]]

* In the US there are two major exceptions to medical/psychologist privilege: 1) The patient presents an imminent danger, either to himself or others, and 2) The patient is involved in child abuse or elder abuse. In those cases, the doctor/therapist is actually legally obligated to report those to the authorities.

** Tony Soprano's psychiatrist tells him that if he confesses to her any serious crimes or suggests that someone is in physical danger (eg, that he intends to kill someone), then she is a mandated reporter and has to pass the info on. The first season has Tony making an effort to avoid such subjects, but when he returns to therapy in season two -- after Dr. Melfi is aware of all that he does and has willingly chosen to continue working with him -- Tony stops dodging the darker aspects of his life. He still doesn't say ''exactly'' what's going on, since if it was blatant enough she couldn't ignore it, but he lets enough come through that she gets the idea anyway.

* In Creator/JohnBrunner's ''The Shockwave Rider'' confidential confession through the video phone to a professional listener whose duty is to keep the call confidential is possible. This is allowed through what would now be called an extremely successful hack of the telephone and information network (the book predates the internet). The authorities naturally are not at all keen that this is possible mainly for policy reasons (they don't want it possible to have a conversation they can't listen in on) but also because there are some confessions they really don't want to be made (they don't trust that the hearer will be discreet). An amazingly current book in the themes it addresses.