It is useful here to make a distinction between confidentiality and secrecy. A commitment to secrecy is a commitment never, under any circumstance, to share the information in question. This commitment on the part of the priest is inherent in a sacramental confession. Confidentiality, on the other hand, means holding information in trust and sharing it only in the interest of the person involved — with their permission, or in order to seek consultation with another professional, or in order to protect others from being harmed. The ethic of confidentiality is intended to assist people in getting help for their problems; it is not intended to prevent people from being held accountable for their harmful actions or to keep them from getting the help they need.
From Confidentiality and Mandatory Reporting: A False Dilemma? by Marie M. Fortune.
The understanding of sacramental confession is rarely found in the Lutheran Church. Nowhere in Luther’s writing about confessions is there an indication that a confession is to be a private secretive affair between the pastor and the confessing person. In the Small Catechism, the confession is seen as a public affair, and the person confessing his/her sins comes as a person in relation to others.
It is therefore a well known practice to confess your sins collectively in the worship service of the Lutheran church, reminding us that the confession is not a private but in fact a public affair. The notion of secrecy has no room in Lutheran practices at all.
In some segments of the Lutheran church we have a mixed up (and messed up) understanding of therapeutic listening, sacramental confessions, individualism, and self proclaimed professionalism, with the exclusive interpretation that Jesus is speaking solely to pastors in Jn 20.22-23:
‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ (Jn 20.22-23)
And this causes some pastors to think that they, and they alone, have abilities and powers not offered to anyone else.
This blending of ideas along with superiority complex among some pastors, causes them to think that 17th century thinking about individualism, 20th century thinking about therapeutic listening, confidentiality concept of modernity, and misinterpreted words of Jesus, makes them immune to the rules of the society.
This is written in the context of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Iceland, and conversations in the Icelandic media about confidentiality and mandatory reporting.