Confession question

[TravisandJill]

Hi there I am a new Catholic as of this Easter and had my first confession dilema. I confessed to a priest that I had “Impure thoughts”, but did not go into specifics about what they were about. I was glad he did not ask me to clarify, but now I feel like I have somehow cheated and not fully confessed because I did not say what the thoughts were about.

I am still new at this whole confession thing. Is it ok that I was very vague in stating “impure thoughts” or is some detail needed to make my confession valid?

Thank you!

 

[passus]

No, “impure thoughts” is pretty straightforward. Really the only thing it could possibly mean is that you had some impure thoughts. It’s all you needed to say unless the impure thoughts led to something else sinful or were caused by something else sinful, in which case you should have elaborated.

Now, if you had confessed that you merely “offended chastity” or had done something “impure,” you would definitely have needed to explain that.

 

[TravisandJill]

Ok thank you!
I was confused because I read somewhere that you had to confess the type of impure thought, and other things I have read say do not go into detail.

 

[Joannm]

Ok thank you!
I was confused because I read somewhere that you had to confess the type of impure thought, and other things I have read say do not go into detail.

If the priest wanted more detail he would have asked.

 

[belmontmac]

If the priest wanted more detail he would have asked.

Exactly, good job on going.

 

[datingtrappists]

The only time you would need to further explain those “impure thoughts” is if they were compounded by the type of impure thoughts, such as towards someone of the same sex or familiar affinity (towards a relative). And that would be the depth of the explaination needed, eg “I had impure thoughts of someone of the same sex,” or “I had impure thoughts towards sister-in-law”.