A priest wouldn't let me confess past sins

[Jack_245814]

So I’ve returned to the Church after a few years away a little while ago, and have been going to weekly confession. I confessed most of my past sins which were undoubtedly mortal at my first confession, but I still remember some, and I like confessing them. Whether I have to or not, it just seems good to me: I don’t get obsessive about it (though I do sometimes jot down notes on a piece of paper so I won’t forget), I just think it fosters a closer relationship between me and my confessor.

However, last week my regular priest wasn’t in, and instead it was someone else. He seemed like a perfectly fine priest, wasn’t some lovey-dovey-liveandletlive type or anything After I’d confessed the sins of the week, I said “and now I have some sins that I committed before I rejoined the Church which I’ve recently remembered”; a few of these were probably mortal sins, a few were borderline (i.e. very frequent sexual fantasies when bored in class, things like that).

He wouldn’t let me confess them though. He just said “that’s not healthy; God’s already forgiven you.” I said “Okay, but since I already have them here is it okay if I confess them?” and he just said “No.” I didn’t push it any further since I figured that’d be disrespectful, but I am wondering whether he was right or not.

I always thought that, while not necessarily necessary (I get different answers from different places), confessing past sins is a good practice. Is it unhealthy instead?

Edit: One minor thing, too: the priest told me to do a “prayer of forgiveness” and I said “Oh so can I just do an Act of Contrition?” and he told me to just “pray from the heart”. Is this okay too? I have to emphasize again that he wasn’t any modernist, so it’s not like he was having me say some prayers borrowed from “Native American spirituality” or anything He just seems generally to not particularly like prescribed prayers, judging from other experiences I have had with him.

 

[Sam_Maloney]

If these were things you’ve already received absolution for, then you shouldn’t bring them up again.

A ‘prayer from the heart’ for pennance is always a good idea. Though I love the poetry and precision of our rote prayers, there’s a chance that using the act of contrition automatically without also praying in a more personal way can degenerate into a sort of magic incantation-- say these words to erase sin-- instead of genuinely opening our hearts to God.

 

[Joannm]

So I’ve returned to the Church after a few years away a little while ago, and have been going to weekly confession. I confessed most of my past sins which were undoubtedly mortal at my first confession, but I still remember some, and I like confessing them. Whether I have to or not, it just seems good to me: I don’t get obsessive about it (though I do sometimes jot down notes on a piece of paper so I won’t forget), I just think it fosters a closer relationship between me and my confessor.

However, last week my regular priest wasn’t in, and instead it was someone else. He seemed like a perfectly fine priest, wasn’t some lovey-dovey-liveandletlive type or anything After I’d confessed the sins of the week, I said “and now I have some sins that I committed before I rejoined the Church which I’ve recently remembered”; a few of these were probably mortal sins, a few were borderline (i.e. very frequent sexual fantasies when bored in class, things like that).

He wouldn’t let me confess them though. He just said “that’s not healthy; God’s already forgiven you.” I said “Okay, but since I already have them here is it okay if I confess them?” and he just said “No.” I didn’t push it any further since I figured that’d be disrespectful, but I am wondering whether he was right or not.

I always thought that, while not necessarily necessary (I get different answers from different places), confessing past sins is a good practice. Is it unhealthy instead?

Edit: One minor thing, too: the priest told me to do a “prayer of forgiveness” and I said “Oh so can I just do an Act of Contrition?” and he told me to just “pray from the heart”. Is this okay too? I have to emphasize again that he wasn’t any modernist, so it’s not like he was having me say some prayers borrowed from “Native American spirituality” or anything He just seems generally to not particularly like prescribed prayers, judging from other experiences I have had with him.

I think the priest’s comment was on target. When we confess our sins we do our best to remember our sins and then we also express our sorrow for these sins and all the sins of our past life. The priest does not need to know every detail of every single sin you committed From the sound of it you have confessed sexual sins but want to confess each time you remember that you committeed one. For someone who has been away from the sacrament for a long time, this really isn’t necessary. All that is really required at this time is a good confession of the kind of sins you committeed as no priest would expect you to rememember each time or the details. I committeed sexual sins of this type for a number of years is probably sufficient and you are forgiven for all those.

Also, like the other poster wrote, often we say prayers from rote and don’t even think about the words. Praying an prayer of contrition from your heart is good every now and then. I usually do that a few times a year so it doesn’t become so automatic.

You have to remember that God forgave you your sins. To keep confessing them says that you don’t beleive you were forgiven or that you didn’t accept the mercy of God.

 

[Seatuck]

You may confess past sins as long as you are not being scrupulous about it. In other words if you realize you are forgiven for them but have 1) recently remembered a past sin you did not confess( we are actually obligated to confess these when we remember them) or 2) you have reached a new realization about your contrition for a past sin. St Thomas Aquinas wrote of the value of reaching new levels of contrition and confessing them again. This purifies us more and makes us more perfect.Reaching perfect contrition for our sin also reduces the work that Christ needs to do with us in purgatory. But you have to be healthy and realize the sin was forgiven in the first place if you had a general confession .

 

[Joan_M]

That priest was wrong. When we confess we are required to confess all the mortal sins we can remember, holding back nothing. In situations like yours, confessing after some years of being away from confession, it is quite likely that you will not remember everything - that was my situation, too.

Now, when we make a good confession, we receive absolution for all of our sins, including the forgotten ones. However, should we remember any that we forgot to confess, we are obliged to confess them. The whole point of confession is to tell the priest all of our serious sins. You tried to do that, but the priest wouldn’t let you. Now, he may be afraid that you are scrupulous, but he should have listened better. Perhaps he has not been properly formed and doesn’t really know.

Better you do not go to him for confession again. You were absolutely correct in wanting to confess sins that you had previously forgotten and, therefore, not confessed.

In my case, this situation - of remembering sins and confessing them (not re-confessing, just confessing them for the first time) continued for up to a year, with bigger and bigger gaps of time between remembering as the year went by.

Besides being what the Church requires, it makes you feel better too.

 

[baltobetsy]

Your regular priest is apparently OK with this, so when you go to him, there is no problem. When you find yourself with a different confessor, you might try a new approach. Finish the confession of your current sins and then say, “I am sorry for these and all the sins of my past life, especially ______ .”

Betsy

 

[bilop]

I think the priest was worried about you being scrupulous.

I have also had priests tell me to forget my past (absolved) sins.

I think it is unwise to worry about previously absolved sins unless it is something different in kind from what you have confessed.

If it was a repeated sin, like impurity or sexual thoughts, or being bored in class, you certainly should not be dregding up additional examples of it. One confesses those sorts of sins in kind and general number, e.g. “I was impure with myself approximately twice a week for x years.”

I would only bring up an absolved sin if it was definitely mortal, and different in kind from what you had confessed. i.e. you confessed fornication, but didn’t confess using contraception.

Also, many priests don’t ask for the formulaic act of contrition. It is not required for absolution. “Lord forgive me, a sinner” is always fine.

On the whole, I think this priest was right.

God Bless

 

[FrDavid96]

So I’ve returned to the Church after a few years away a little while ago, and have been going to weekly confession. I confessed most of my past sins which were undoubtedly mortal at my first confession, but I still remember some, and I like confessing them. Whether I have to or not, it just seems good to me: I don’t get obsessive about it (though I do sometimes jot down notes on a piece of paper so I won’t forget), I just think it fosters a closer relationship between me and my confessor.

However, last week my regular priest wasn’t in, and instead it was someone else. He seemed like a perfectly fine priest, wasn’t some lovey-dovey-liveandletlive type or anything After I’d confessed the sins of the week, I said “and now I have some sins that I committed before I rejoined the Church which I’ve recently remembered”; a few of these were probably mortal sins, a few were borderline (i.e. very frequent sexual fantasies when bored in class, things like that).

He wouldn’t let me confess them though. He just said “that’s not healthy; God’s already forgiven you.” I said “Okay, but since I already have them here is it okay if I confess them?” and he just said “No.” I didn’t push it any further since I figured that’d be disrespectful, but I am wondering whether he was right or not.

I always thought that, while not necessarily necessary (I get different answers from different places), confessing past sins is a good practice. Is it unhealthy instead?

Edit: One minor thing, too: the priest told me to do a “prayer of forgiveness” and I said “Oh so can I just do an Act of Contrition?” and he told me to just “pray from the heart”. Is this okay too? I have to emphasize again that he wasn’t any modernist, so it’s not like he was having me say some prayers borrowed from “Native American spirituality” or anything He just seems generally to not particularly like prescribed prayers, judging from other experiences I have had with him.

Jack,
A few thoughts. Oftentimes, the definition of “mortal sins” is misunderstood, and “expanded-upon” In very general terms, if the average human being sincerely cannot remember the sins, then they were most likely not mortal sins. A working definition of a mortal sin is one in which we completely reject the love of God. Here’s a suggestion: confess the sin and allow your confessor in persona Christi to determine if it was “mortal” or “venial.”

While there is a definate value in confessing past venial sins which have not been confessed before, there is likewise a danger of crossing the imaginary line where that becomes rejecting the absolution which you have received in past confessions. As another poster said, a general statement like “I am sorry for these sins and all the sins of my past” is a good rule-of-thumb to follow.

Whether or not the priest was "right’ in telling you not to confess the sins depends very much on the details. While we should confess sins “in kind and number” it’s also possible to inappropriately expand upon that to the point of being scrupulous. Trust your confessor. If he says that what you’ve confessed is sufficient (in whatever words) then you should accept that.

On the “Act of Contrition” there is no set prayer for this. It’s up to the penitent to use one of the suggested (key word) forms, one learned in the past, or one’s own words. Just as a priest cannot prohibit one’s own words, neither can he prohibit using a traditional formula (or whatever you’ve learned). If he outright prohibited a formula prayer, he was wrong. If, on the other hand, he was pastorally encouraging you to use your own words, that’s just fine.

 

[CatholiCommit]

It is true that once a since has been forgiven it is forgiven, but sometimes people have heavy guilt, and I think the penitent should be able to confess anything that they feel is offensive to God.

I am a new Catholic, coming from the Baptist Church and there were things in the past that I had did, I confessed to the priest when I became Catholic, I confessed anything that I thought would be helpful in getting me absolutions as long as I was sorry for those things.

However Priest do make it a point to tell people it is not necessary, if it has been forgiven, but then we have the obligation to confess. So I guess it could go both ways. There really is no right or wrong.

 

[Joan_M]

Jack,
A few thoughts. Oftentimes, the definition of “mortal sins” is misunderstood, and “expanded-upon” In very general terms, if the average human being sincerely cannot remember the sins, then they were most likely not mortal sins. A working definition of a mortal sin is one in which we completely reject the love of God. Here’s a suggestion: confess the sin and allow your confessor in persona Christi to determine if it was “mortal” or “venial.”

The average human being who turned their back on the Church or, while remaining in the Church, decided that they knew better than the Pope, can, indeed sincerely not remember mortal sins committed years before. I know - first hand.

Good priests who spend much time hearing confessions know this very well and will not lead you astray. They will ensure that you do not overdo the guilt, advising you to simply mention the sin(s) and let them go. But, mention them you must. It is a requirement.

 

[Methodi]

That priest was wrong. When we confess we are required to confess all the mortal sins we can remember, holding back nothing. In situations like yours, confessing after some years of being away from confession, it is quite likely that you will not remember everything - that was my situation, too.

Now, when we make a good confession, we receive absolution for all of our sins, including the forgotten ones. However, should we remember any that we forgot to confess, we are obliged to confess them. The whole point of confession is to tell the priest all of our serious sins. You tried to do that, but the priest wouldn’t let you. Now, he may be afraid that you are scrupulous, but he should have listened better. Perhaps he has not been properly formed and doesn’t really know.

Better you do not go to him for confession again. You were absolutely correct in wanting to confess sins that you had previously forgotten and, therefore, not confessed.

In my case, this situation - of remembering sins and confessing them (not re-confessing, just confessing them for the first time) continued for up to a year, with bigger and bigger gaps of time between remembering as the year went by.

Besides being what the Church requires, it makes you feel better too.

Funny, when I go to confession, the priest always says I absolve You of all of your sins, this to me means the ones I may have forgotten, & the ones I confessed.

 

[Karl_M]

The priest was correct, but he should have been more tactful.

Fr. Vincent Serpa answered a similar question like yours
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=69901

 

[Danny_OC]

The priest was wrong; he had no way to make a judgment about scrupulousness since this was the only time you had seen him!

The devil loves to make us value our “health” above our holiness.

Sorrow for sin is a GOOD thing, and need not vanish after absolution. It is something to be prayed for. Be thankful you have it.

 

[FrDavid96]

The average human being who turned their back on the Church or, while remaining in the Church, decided that they knew better than the Pope, can, indeed sincerely not remember mortal sins committed years before. I know - first hand.

Good priests who spend much time hearing confessions know this very well and will not lead you astray. They will ensure that you do not overdo the guilt, advising you to simply mention the sin(s) and let them go. But, mention them you must. It is a requirement.

Joan,
That’s why I qualified my words by saying “in very general terms…” It’s also why I ended the paragraph by saying "confess the sin and allow your confessor in persona Christi to determine if it was “mortal” or “venial.” "

In confession, it is an essential role of the priest acting in persona Christi, to be a judge. The penitent should not be questioning the decisions of the judge as to what is sufficient or not in articulating the sins, or what is superfluous. Since none of us reading/writing these posts was present there (other than the original poster), none of us has any business judging the judgement of the priest in that confession.

We can make objective comments about the celebration of the Sacrament (for example, we can say that if a priest required a penitent to break the seal, he would indeed be wrong). But this is not an objective matter, it’s a very subjective one.

You’re right to say that past sins which are remembered should (indeed must) be confessed. **But no one here is in any position to judge or criticize the priest’s decision that what had been said up to that point was sufficient. **

In an earlier post today, you said “That priest was wrong. When we confess we are required to confess all the mortal sins we can remember.” How can you possibly set yourself up to judge that priest if you do not even know what the specific sin(s) was??? I’m most curious to know that. Do you, who have your information from a web forum, have more knowledge of what was said in that confession than the priest-confessor who actually heard the confession? Perhaps you have more training and experience hearing confessions than that anonymous priest?

I will be the last one to defend priests who deny the seriousness of sin, or who take the Sacrament of Confession too lightly. But based on what the original poster said, that does not seem to me to be the case. I could be wrong. I don’t know; but I daresay that you don’t know either.

Jack,
Let me repeat what I said before. Allow the Judge in the confession to determine what is sufficient, and allow the Judge to determine what is mortal or venial (according to the teachings of the Church, of course).

 

[FrDavid96]

The priest was wrong; he had no way to make a judgment about scrupulousness since this was the only time you had seen him!

The devil loves to make us value our “health” above our holiness.

Sorrow for sin is a GOOD thing, and need not vanish after absolution. It is something to be prayed for. Be thankful you have it.

Danny,

If you weren’t there to hear what happened, how are you in a position to judge that priest by saying “The priest was wrong” ???

Scrupulosity can manifest itself in different forms, and it’s not necessary for a priest to hear confessions from a particular penitent several times in order to recognize it.

 

[JReducation]

In Mystical Theology the rule regarding confession and spiritual direction is very clear, OBEDIENCE. If the confessor or the spiritual director tells you what to do and what not to do, you obey. This is what makes saints. They learn to obey.

Challenging, second-guessing, and questioning the judgment of the confessor is not only useless, but also the beginning of spiritual pride. Spiritual pride has been written about extensively by the Doctors of the Church.

If a confessor or a spiritual director guide you in a certain direction and there is a moral “fallout”, for lack of a better word, that is the minister’s responsibility, not yours. You earn more grace through obedience, than you do through scrupples and worry.

Unless you are an expert in matters of confession or matters of spiritual direction and unless you are there, you can’t make a subjective judgment. Those of us who guide souls in either confession or spiritual direction know the seriousness of the responsibility that we assume. The great consolation that should bring peace to the individual is that they free to go about their business to the next step in their spiritual journey.

I agree with Father. Let the priest do his job. Ifhe’s acting in good conscience and guiding the soul to the best of his knowledge, the individual is not responsible for the guidance that he receives. He can leave the confessional in peace.

Fraternally,

JR

 

[Danny_OC]

Danny,

If you weren’t there to hear what happened, how are you in a position to judge that priest by saying “The priest was wrong” ???

Scrupulosity can manifest itself in different forms, and it’s not necessary for a priest to hear confessions from a particular penitent several times in order to recognize it.

I don’t suppose the OP would have posted the question if he would only accept answers from people with direct experience of the situation. I made the best conclusion I could with the facts given though, I think.

 

[Danny_OC]

In Mystical Theology the rule regarding confession and spiritual direction is very clear, OBEDIENCE. If the confessor or the spiritual director tells you what to do and what not to do, you obey. This is what makes saints. They learn to obey.

Challenging, second-guessing, and questioning the judgment of the confessor is not only useless, but also the beginning of spiritual pride. Spiritual pride has been written about extensively by the Doctors of the Church.

If a confessor or a spiritual director guide you in a certain direction and there is a moral “fallout”, for lack of a better word, that is the minister’s responsibility, not yours. You earn more grace through obedience, than you do through scrupples and worry.

Unless you are an expert in matters of confession or matters of spiritual direction and unless you are there, you can’t make a subjective judgment. Those of us who guide souls in either confession or spiritual direction know the seriousness of the responsibility that we assume. The great consolation that should bring peace to the individual is that they free to go about their business to the next step in their spiritual journey.

I agree with Father. Let the priest do his job. Ifhe’s acting in good conscience and guiding the soul to the best of his knowledge, the individual is not responsible for the guidance that he receives. He can leave the confessional in peace.

Fraternally,

JR

In better times, I would agree. But we live in the modern world. We must be harder on ourselves than many priests today will be.

In this particular situation, sure, I could be wrong. But in many, I know I am not. Look at where I am coming from: the Catholic priest at my university openly tells students that the “the church is completely wrong on homosexuality, women priests… we need to go with what we feel is right, not necessarily what the church teaches…” Just because he is a confessor does not mean that someone going to him to confess a sin of homosexual behavior can feel relieved after the priests blows it off as nothing wrong

 

[FrDavid96]

I don’t suppose the OP would have posted the question if he would only accept answers from people with direct experience of the situation. I made the best conclusion I could with the facts given though, I think.

Therein lies the problem. You did not have enough information, yet you still took it upon yourself to make a judgement about the priest. When you made the statement “The priest was wrong” you were pronouncing a judgement on him. You came to a conclusion without having the facts.

If you had explained the teachings of the Church, and the relevant principles of Confession, I would have taken no issue with what you said. That’s what these forums are all about.

When you said “the priest was wrong”, that crossed the line.

 

[crenfro]

So I’ve returned to the Church after a few years away a little while ago, and have been going to weekly confession. I confessed most of my past sins which were undoubtedly mortal at my first confession, but I still remember some, and I like confessing them.

Welcome back!

What helps me is to keep up going to confession.

I’ve read that praying for a good spiritual advisor/confessor is recommended, too, while keeping in mind that Jesus is working through the priest, the priest is His representative - at least that’s how I understand it, but I could be wrong and if I am someone please correct me.

Also, reading about the sacrament of penance helps.

And also, since you’ve only recently returned, it may take a little bit of time to readjust to being back “home.”

I agree with the other posters here who say all your past sins are forgiven even if you don’t remember them all but if you do remember some later, to confess them next time.

Do you have a good examination of conscience you use? Sometimes it helps to make a written list too so you’ll know for sure what you’ve confessed.

Anyway, I’m so delighted you’ve come back home this all feels like mere details to me.