A Question About the Sacrament of Reconcilliation

[catholic03]

Pax Christi:

I have been dwelling on a particular thought lately. It seems that most newcomers to this forum ask questions about confession. I am relatively established as a member, but I have an interesting question. Some have talked about how many priests will ask people to confess only their worst mortal sins, on the grounds that if they have been away from the Church for a long time, or for whatever other reason, confession would otherwise take a long time. Is this a valid confession?

Also, say that somebody has been away from the Church for a long time, and they decided to confess perhaps 10 of their worst mortal sins, and of course alluded to the other types of mortal and venial sins they have committed. Is this a valid confession?

Thank you for your very kind responses.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

We’re not supposed to leave potentially mortal sins that we remember unconfessed. We are not supposed to leave out potentially mortal sins in the interest of time. If our confession is going to take that long, we should make an appointment.

Speaking as someone who was away from the church and upon returning blew through 18 years of sins including a number of big grave sins in about 5 minutes, I don’t see how someone would need more than 5 to 10 minutes to rattle off a laundry list of sins, unless the priest stopped them to ask questions. But that’s just me.

Can you point to a post where the priest told people to confess only their “worst mortal sins”? I doubt that a priest would ever tell someone to only confess their “worst mortal sins” because people, especially those who have been away from the Church for a while, are not in a position to necessarily understand which sins are mortal and which are not.

 

[catholic03]

I have seen posts in the past and I will try to locate one. We must remember that of course, people who have been away might have forgotten some mortal sins, or will have to state only the number of times they have committed a certain sin (or an estimate) if the sin was committed a lot, whereas at a normal confession one might usually describe the situation in some detail each time they committed a mortal sin. Perhaps that is what such priests are asking for.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If you have forgotten a possibly mortal sin, you do not need to confess it.

If you remember it later, the normal practice is to go to confession at your earliest opportunity and mention it.

I forgot a couple possibly mortal sins and when they came back to my mind I mentioned them in subsequent confessions. It’ s not a big deal. After three or four confessions I was pretty much done remembering anything and it was all about what was going on right now.

As for ongoing possibly mortal sins, I just said I did such and such on a regular basis between 2000 and 2003 or whatever the time frame was. The priest did not ask for further details like X number of times; I wouldn’t have remembered anyway since it was 2016 when I was confessing.