Details in confession (level of)

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SaintJude

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Ok so how specific would one have to be with confessing sexual sin

Scenario 1

A teenager had a lustful thought that was incestuous. Would one have completed an integral confession by saying “When I was young I had one incestuous lustful thought” Or would one need to specify whether it was a same sex incestuous lustful thought. I.e. To a brother, male cousin.

So the question is “Is one incestuous lustful thought enough”

Scenario 2: one had a lustful thought about Jessica Rabbit when one was a teenager

Would one need to confess a lustful thought about an animal?!!!”

Scenario 3:
“You have 3 separate lustful thoughts. First about 1 male and second and third occasion about a women”

Would “ I had 3 lustful thoughts” cover it or does one need to specify the gender?
 
Here is what Priest @edward_george1 says:
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Please stop describing your sins in detail! Moral Theology
I’m a priest. I hear confessions. And I can tell you, you don’t even need to go into detail in confession!! It’s better if you don’t. If you just say “I committed X sin Y times,” that suffices. And if I’m not clear on what you mean, I’ll ask! But detail has a danger, that we start explaining things to try to justify them. It’s better for our humility to just admit what we did and accept God’s forgiveness and get out! Be brief, be bold, be gone! -Fr ACEGC
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You don’t need to go into specific detail.
 
Ok supposing that person had already unintentionally confessed them in the less detailed manner. Would one be required to revisit the sacrament
 
When I say that providing too many details leads to justifying one’s sins, what I’m saying is that it turns from simply stating that one has sinned into making excuses for it. “Well, Father, I did sin X, but this other person did something and made me think this or feel that so that’s why I did it.” One priest friend of mine said that when people start being too detailed like that, he’ll ask them: “if you had it to do over, given those conditions, would you commit the same sin?” If they say yes, then he replies that they clearly don’t have firm purpose of amendment.

As for my “bad advice,” I would refer you to the fact that “number and kind” is pretty standard advice for much of the church’s history. Details are only necessary if they affect gravity. So in the case of the example you give, yes, it would be necessary to say that it was child pornography, because that’s a different kind of sin than “regular” pornography. I didn’t say never give details. Just that a ton of detail isn’t really necessary all the time. To go to the opposite extreme, as you suggest, and confess in as much detail as possible is not a good idea. And it’s definitely bad advice for the scrupulous, who will feel burdened by it, and like they can never confess well enough.

Keep it simple. Say what you did and how many times, and leave the rest to God. God knows what you did and why you did it, he just wants to hear you say that you did it.

-Fr ACEGC
 
I have flagged the thread because the OP has a history of scrupulosity, and the advice he has received in this thread will not help him.

OP, please work with your priest on matters such as this. Asking online will not help you and will only make your scrupulosity worse.

-Fr ACEGC
 
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Tolle_Lege said:
This is just one priest’s opinion. I have had priests ask for more details in confession. Personally, I think it is bad advice. A person should by default, while in the sacrament of confession, provide as many details as possible and leave it up to the priest to stop them there. His statement that providing details can justify the sins makes no sense; giving very little or general statements is much worse. Providing vague statements is easy.

Think about it this way - if a person viewed child pornography, would simply saying “I viewed inappropriate images and had lustful thoughts” convey the gravity of that sin? Not at all.
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That’s some audacity to say a priest here gave bad advice.

Think about this way - if a person viewed what you used in your example, they would just say they viewed it ,. They wouldn’t detail the images.
 
@SaintJude
You can’t unintentionally sin. You don’t need to go into details. Once a sin is forgiven God forgets it ever happened. You should try to do the same!
 
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