Details during confession

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Longbow76

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I have had my first confession a little over a year ago and have gone to confession regularly ever since.

One of the sins that I confessed frequently was the sin of watching pornography, that said, I never went into any detail of the kind of pornography I watched, just kept it to sin and number of times.
Should I have mentioned the details in cases that have unnatural acts? (eg two women)
Anticipated thanks for all the answers and God bless you.
 
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If your priest required details, he would have asked.

Be brief
Be bold
Be gone
 
Thanks for the reply, my main doubt was weather or not the detail was grave enough to aggravate the sin.
 
Welcome to the forum 🙂 Don’t worry about details in that sense. You can say ‘I watched pornography or even ‘ I sinned sexually with myself ‘ several times since my last confession’ . The important part is that you are laying yourself before God in the confessional. The bottom line is that God knows what you have done any way and he is glad that you are being obedient in being accountable to your sins in the sacrament. Are you a convert ? Me too .
 
Thanks for the reply. Should I confess the sins I have confessed again adding these details?
 
Thanks for the reply. I was baptized Catholic as a baby and grew up as a non-denominational who never went to church. Through high school I read more about Catholicism and decided to start practicing it.
Started going to church and converted shortly after high school ended. Was confirmed two years after that.
 
If you were unaware that these details affected the gravity at the time of confessing them, then yes, I would mention that " in my last confession I unintentionally didn’t include factors which affected the gravity due to ignorance" in regard to the already confessed sin of … or you can say the above + at the time of confessing I wasn’t sure if I needed to add these details, so decided to leave it out , so I now confess …

That way, you can be sure that you’ve made a good confession and all details have been submitted to the Tribunal of Mercy.

Whilst it is true that all sins are placed before God for which we are repentant and are forgiven at that time - the knowingly & deliberate withholding of a grevious sin or the factors that affect or contribute to its gravity in order to make it seem less than what you know it is , does not make for a good confession.

After reading the links above, it is up to your conscience whether you do or don’t.

ETA - it’s the same with a forgotten mortal sin. The intention was to confess it, the penitent is repentant, but simply forgot to mention it. It is forgiven, but the obligation to mention it at the penitents next confession remains.
 
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Longbow76 said:
I was baptized Catholic as a baby and grew up as a non-denominational who never went to church.
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There are a lot of people with the same or similar backgrounds and like you who do return to the Faith.
Longbow76 said:
Catholicism and decided to start practicing it.
Started going to church and converted shortly after high school ended. Was confirmed two years after that.
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Terrific! Welcome home!!
 
Thank you very much. You helped me a lot. I’ll tell the priest about my situation when I get the chance. I had not heard about having to mention details that aggravated sins before so I was completely unaware during my last confession.
 
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I personally would mention it in confession, and also ask Father if the inadvertent leaving out of the details invalidated your prior confession. I think for your own sake, it is best to hear it from your own priest. I also think it best to remain with the same priest for confession - he’ll get to know you and then be better able to guide you and help you in overcoming sins and forming your conscience better.

God bless you and keep you.

ETA -
Longbow76 said:
I had not heard about having to mention details that aggravated sins
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happened to me too once. I’d just been, but the Holy Spirit was prompting me, and so I went back in, and asked the priest about aggravating details and he absolved me again.
 
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I’ll be honest. While I don’t suffer from scruples generally/much/often your posts are causing me serious anxiety. Do you have any links to something more “official” which might outline how we discern when a detail is relevant to the gravity of a sin? As a convert there’s certain things I’ve never spelled out I now find myself deeply worried over.

I wouldn’t normally ask a person online for this sort of help, but seeing as I rarely have feelings like this and you’re the one who brought it up you might have a more general source.

Aquinas seems to have not really addressed the question and he’s my go to generally (because unfortunately today’s practice seems to be pretty non-committal and wishy-washy when it comes to helping people form their consciences).
 
chessnerd321 said:
I’ll be honest. While I don’t suffer from scruples generally/much/often your posts are causing me serious anxiety.
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First off, I assume it is I to whom you are directing your post, so based on this, then I will try to help. That is what I try to do and I hope I can actually help. I’m sorry if my post caused you anxiety.

As this has come up in other threads, where some posters do not agree with my explanation including links - my first piece of advice is to ask your regular priest to whom you confess to.

In the CCC #1858 - " Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother.“132 The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.” (Bold emphasis is mine).

So we see that God gave us the gravity of sins - He listed them in a particular order.
Using the above"-
5. You shall not kill
6. You shall not commit adultery
7. You shall not steal
8. You shall not bear false witness
against your neighbor.
So we see the gravity as listed here.

Within each there are greater or lesser sins. Stealing for example - stealing $10 compared to stealing $1000. So we’d ordinarily say the graver theft would be the $1000. And that would be right. But in another example if the $10 belonged to a homeless person and the $1000 to a huge financial business, the graver theft is to the homeless person - their loss is greater, whereas the loss to the huge financial company is probably written off as ‘petty cash’ . I’m hoping you can see the difference here.

There is this article from Ascension Press that helps explain the other factors to consider Are all sins equal “and gravity can also be affected by the context of the sin.” (Italics are mine).

One example would be say an individual confesses the sin of fornication. So whilst fornication covers these acts between a man and a woman outside marriage, the gravity also affecting this would be if say, rather than just one partner, there were more, on the same occasion at that time. (As we have young ones as young as 13 who can be members, not to mention those reading - I’m hoping you get my meaning).

Apart from the links and CCC I have already posted, I honestly advise seeking the counsel of your priest and abiding by his instructions. Especially if you suffer from anxiety or scruples. He can give clearer guidance on what factors affect the gravity and should be mentioned in confession.
 
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@chessnerd321

Something else I learnt a long time ago, but which isn’t often explained, is that if you are not sure whether you have committed a sin , then we are to say, as an example - " Detraction - not sure", or “Speeding - not sure” .

As another example of details that affect gravity - for example with speeding, lets say you were doing say 30 above the limit on a normal surburban road, so could be confessed as speeding 30mph/km above the limit. But if this was within a school zone, (therefore context), this makes it graver than if speeding ouside a school zone, and should be mentioned.
 
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I think I have a better understanding of what you meant. Thanks. I’m definitely not some who would be fairly categorized as a “sufferer of scruples”. But I did get some anxiety reading what you’ve written.

I suppose having had some more time and with your clarifying remarks I feel better. Basically you must confess all mortal sins you can remember. Even if you remember them after you’re already forgiven but you have to mention them later. That I already knew.

However, you gave me the impression that if you didn’t give enough detail for the priest to know just how severe the sin was that you’ve invalidated your confession.

I think that’s a burden beyond what the church asks of us.

Your point about asking my priest: We’re so quick in this day and age to not heap shame and condemnation on people that even priests will often essentially refuse to offer serious advice in these matters and instead offer the same old read me the packed-with-grey-areas three conditions for mortal sin stuff. Sometimes even refusing to answer the question “does x constitute grave matter?” (Which is a question which always has an absolute answer, since it precludes the other conditions for mortal sin.)

I think it’s important to have a more practical conversation for us converts and reverts who haven’t grown up around people with well-formed Catholic consciences (which is a long process I’m working on my 3rd year). So thank you for actually answering my question.
 
chessnerd321 said:
if you didn’t give enough detail for the priest to know just how severe the sin was that you’ve invalidated your confession.
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If done deliberately to conceal, hide the gravity, then that would invalidate it. Because the intention was not to confess the true nature of the sin, which was fully known, but to deceive the confessor /God.

If your intention was to make a good confession and you confessed the sin fully as you believed was the right way, that doesn’t invalidate your confession because there was no intention to deceive etc.

Yes, there is a lot to learn and understand, and a lifetime of work in cooperating with God’s grace in practicing the virtues on our way to becoming Saints.
 
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