Have I caused scandal in confession?

[PaulDT]

Yesterday I went to regular confession but I had something unusual to bring up. Let’s say that my parish priest and my friend who serves mass daily are getting along increasingly worse.

Because of this the priest approached me in private, and started telling me both true and false things about how bad my friend was, probably in order to drive me away from him (and because he needed to vent).

I was too suprised and intimidated to tell him I didn’t want to hear this, so yesterday I went to confession to the other priest about what had happened. I hesitated for a while before I decided to be specific about:

• the fact that of all people our parish priest gossiped to me;
• one bad thing in particular that he told me about my friend.

I am afraid that I may have caused scandal to the other priest. Should I have been less specific or should I have confessed in another parish?

Ps: I just want to say that my parish priest did NOT break the seal of confession and while what he did was wrong, he is a good priest with unfortunately a lot of pressure to deal with.

 

[yankeesouth]

You did not need to confess any details unless the priest needed them. Confess the kind of sin and number.

 

[PaulDT]

You did not need to confess any details unless the priest needed them. Confess the kind of sin and number.

I thought I had to, because the circumstances of my own sin were changed by the fact that it is harder to stand up to the most important person in the parish, and because the particular thing I heard caused particular intrusive thoughts in me. I thought I could allow myself to be specific because the priest is under the seal of confession anyway. I feel really bad…

I haven’t done the “kind and number” practice in a while because I have not had to confess mortal sins for a while and I try to help my confessor with better information about me than a laundry list.