Does the priest remember your sins?

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breezeenroute

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I think I remember hearing somewhere that after you leave the confessional the priest doesn’t remember anything you said. The reason being the priest wouldn’t be able to handle it all. Is this a catholic belief? I can’t remember where I heard it so I don’t know if it came from a reliable source. Just curious:)
 
breezeenroute said:
I think I remember hearing somewhere that after you leave the confessional the priest doesn’t remember anything you said. The reason being the priest wouldn’t be able to handle it all. Is this a catholic belief? I can’t remember where I heard it so I don’t know if it came from a reliable source. Just curious:)
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The priest can remember if he chooses to. Most people who have regular confessors who are also their spiritual directors would need the priest to remember so that he can guide them in overcoming their habit of sin.
 
I have heard some Priests say that they are unable to remember anything revealed to them in the Confessional, but as far as I know most do not have this gift. It is certainly not a teaching of the Church that Priests don’t remember what you say in the Confessional.

It is, however, Church teaching that a Priest may never reveal what he learns in the Confessional, even to the person who confessed it [unless that person brings it up first and/or gives him permission].

As a practical matter, however, I think most Priests would be hard-pressed to distinctly remember a particular individuals’ confession…simply because he hears so many of them. Usually at my Parish we have ten or twenty people confessing at each scheduled time (sometimes more, sometimes less) between two Priests. I would guess that only particularly distinct or unique confessions would ‘stick’ in their memories when they hear 20 or more confessions each and every week!

That might be different at a smaller Parish, of course.
 
I wonder if a confession to the FR. can be used against me in court,
 
A priest’s mind works the same way as anybody else’s; he has no perfect command of his memory or forgetting.

However, a priest I trust says that nothing is very memorable about confession. Hearing the same sins thousands of times ceases to impress the mind.

I’d not worry that your confessor would remember your sins indefinitely.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA
 
breezeenroute said:
I think I remember hearing somewhere that after you leave the confessional the priest doesn’t remember anything you said. The reason being the priest wouldn’t be able to handle it all. Is this a catholic belief? I can’t remember where I heard it so I don’t know if it came from a reliable source. Just curious:)
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No, we do not remember the sins of penitents. The reason is that we hear so many confessions its just naturally hard to keep track of who said what. On top of that we’ve simply not interested in remembering, there’s no reason to.

So we hear x number of confessions and we’re making zero effort to remember who said what, that means we don’t remember confessions.
 
Senior_Pal said:
I wonder if a confession to the FR. can be used against me in court,
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  1. A priest is forbidden by canon law to ever reveal anything he heard in confession. The punishment for doing so is automatic excommunication.
  2. In the USA there’s a legal precedent called “reasonable expectation of privacy.” This precedent means that even if the priest was willing to testify the court would not accept the testimony. This precedent also means, and has been applied, that if someone video/audio taped the confession the evidence would not be accepted by the court.
 
Senior_Pal said:
I wonder if a confession to the FR. can be used against me in court,
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The “no” answers are correct so long as your phrase “a confession to the FR” means “the revealing of sins during sacramental confession to a Catholic priest for the purpose of seeking absolution.”
 
NewEnglandPries said:
  1. A priest is forbidden by canon law to ever reveal anything he heard in confession. The punishment for doing so is automatic excommunication.
2. In the USA there’s a legal precedent called “reasonable expectation of privacy.” This precedent means that even if the priest was willing to testify the court would not accept the testimony. This precedent also means, and has been applied, that if someone video/audio taped the confession the evidence would not be accepted by the court.
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Wow. That is a very good thing.
 
GEddie said:
A priest’s mind works the same way as anybody else’s; he has no perfect command of his memory or forgetting.

However, a priest I trust says that nothing is very memorable about confession. Hearing the same sins thousands of times ceases to impress the mind.

I’d not worry that your confessor would remember your sins indefinitely.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA
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Exactly. My own sins are boringly repetitive, as I’m sure are most others. I go to confession on weekday afternoons before Mass. There is a line. The priest ends up hearing 15 to 20 anonymous confessions in the confessional (no face to face) and then rushes to vest for Mass. I doubt that he could recall anything about individual confessions.
 
NewEnglandPries said:
  1. In the USA there’s a legal precedent called “reasonable expectation of privacy.” This precedent means that even if the priest was willing to testify the court would not accept the testimony. This precedent also means, and has been applied, that if someone video/audio taped the confession the evidence would not be accepted by the court.
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Father, you’re mixing a couple of concepts.

The confession itself is explicitly “privileged,” with the privilege belonging to the penitent. This may be the only privilege stronger than attorney-client privilege.

A reasonable expectation of privacy when making the privileged communication could be reason to prevent someone other than the priest from offering evidence.

But the e bottom line is thT the penitent can always block the priest from testifying, and eavesdropping by third parties can almost always be blocked.

hawk, esq.
 
Senior_Pal said:
I wonder if a confession to the FR. can be used against me in court,
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No. Not even a non-sacramental confession to a random person is admissible in court. Or at least it would be difficult to prove. Someone has to witness you do the crime to be actually convicted.
 
NewEnglandPries said:
No, we do not remember the sins of penitents. The reason is that we hear so many confessions its just naturally hard to keep track of who said what. On top of that we’ve simply not interested in remembering, there’s no reason to.

So we hear x number of confessions and we’re making zero effort to remember who said what, that means we don’t remember confessions.
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I think this is very much the same gift that us nurses have. The things that I have heard, read and done to people in any other context would be terrible. BUT when I see someone that I took care of in the past or a baby I was at the delivery of ( it’s been years now, though), I don’t see the very intimate visual memory, but see a person in good health now or a child where a newborn used to be. It’s not that I CAN"T remember, but as above, why would I?
I wonder if priests perhaps remember the looks of relief and thanksgiving of the penetents…I bet that is an AMAZING feeling.

Kim
 
The priest is a human being. He can remember things, and he can forget things. Some people have better memories than others, so it depends. If he hears your confession on the day he hears 100 confessions, versus hearing your confession on a day let’s say only 20, there is a better chance of him remembering your confession on the day he hears 20.

What you say in the confessional, stays there. Nothing you say can ever be revealed to anyone, not even to another priest. This is the Seal of Confession and if a priest beaks this seal, he is automatically excommunicated. What you say at Confession is between you and God.
 
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