"Can I speak to you confidentially?" A newcomer to Christian Science may ask this question of a Christian Science practitioner he has engaged to help him through prayer. What he has to say may be very private—perhaps in connection with his business or family life, his financial situation, or intimate details about his physical or mental condition. He is concerned that his affairs should not become matters of public knowledge, and he wants to know he can talk freely without fear of being betrayed.
But even if he does not feel concerned about his private affairs remaining private, the practitioner on his case has an absolute obligation to keep them so. If he does not honor this requirement, he is liable to the penalty of Church discipline. In the Church Manual Mrs. Eddy is quite specific: "Members of this Church shall hold in sacred confidence all private communications made to them by their patients; also such information as may come to them by reason of their relation of practitioner to patient. A failure to do this shall subject the offender to Church discipline." Manual of The Mother Church, Art. VIII, Sect. 22;
There is no room for compromise. It is always best that the sacred relationship of practitioner and patient should be kept in the secret sanctuary—even under the cloak of anonymity. The very fact that an individual is needing to engage the services of a practitioner to help him is as necessary to keep confidential as the nature of his difficulty. As far as possible the practitioner on the case should not even reveal to his wife (or in the case of a woman practitioner, to her husband) or anyone else the fact that help is being sought or given.
