General Confession and Numbers

[Tim25]

In the last about year I have become a much more active participant in my faith. However I have also been dealing with scruples.

When this initially happened I made a general confession with a priest. However he told me just to state sins and not numbers (he knew I had some scrupulosity issues). Now I am wondering whether this confession actually covered a bunch of serious sins I confessed or if leaving out numbers means I need to go back and mention those. The vast majority of the items I would have had trouble saying anything more than “many times”.

I have talked to him about this and he assures me that it was okay but I am having doubts. (I talked to another priest and he seemed to think it was fine) Is this an area where I should just be obedient to my confessor or should I be seeking someone else?

 

[fredystairs]

Be obedient to your confessor.

Also, I would suggest that you stick to one priest as your confessor. He’ll know your background and what spiritual advice you need. Going to multiple confessors who don’t know you might mean that you will get multiple different pieces of advice and will only confuse you more.

Stick to one confessor and follow his advice.

I’ll pray for you.

Pax

 

[brown_bear]

You are talking to a very scrupoulos man who has taken many years to improve, but now he is doing it.

If your confessor had told you: «You did well to kill the organist in his third mistake during Mass» then yes, you should abandon him, because he is explicitly denying a commandment of God in serious matter.

But in a much less serious and interpretable matter (by the priest) the responsibility is taken by him, and your task - how many times I have done it! - is to kill the scruple, before he kills you

 

[Tis_Bearself]

You have scrupulosity. You should be discussing this only with your priest.

It’s not healthy for you to be asking these sorts of questions on Internet forums. We are also discouraged from answering these types of questions by scrupulous posters as we don’t want to possibly worsen their condition or encourage them to be asking stuff like this on the Interner.

Please do what your priest says, and please discuss with him, not here.

 

[redcatholic]

So you have doubts and you decide to poll some internet people instead of the actual priest who was involved. He gave you your answer. What do you gain by posting here?