Invalid Confession???

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Last Christmas, I went to confession the day prior because I got into a verbal argument with my husband and threw my rings off in the car. During confession, the priest asked me if I had apologized to my husband and my initial response was yes. I wasn’t trying to deceive the priest but simply answered yes without taking anytime to think it through. It was an automatic response. After approx. 5 seconds or so, I realized that I didn’t think I had apologized at all. I didn’t want to just leave with the yes I had said without thinking about it, so my next response was, “well… kind of… actually I think I need to re-apologize in a more verbal, formal manner when I get home.”

Basically, I wanted him to realize that I was going to make the situation better without looking like an idiot. I know that simply telling him my yes is not correct is what I should have done, but in the moment I felt like an idiot and was worried what he would think of me.

I have problems with being scrupulous so I explained the situation to my husband, after apologizing to him:), and he felt that the priest understood that I didn’t feel I had made an adequate apology.

I let it go after that but it popped back into my head and wanted to see what you all thought.

Thanks,

Jen
 
Your confession was not invalid.

Please get help for your scrupulosity.
 
Correct; your confession was not invalid. However, you should go back to confession and confess that you mislead the priest and are truely sorry.
 
Last Christmas, meaning 2013? If so it’s been over a year and is time for another confession anyways.
 
Thanks for your responses!!! Yes, 2013. I have been to confession many, many times since then. I never asked the priest about this situation because I tend to be scrupulous, thought I was okay, and put it out of my head a long time ago. Just popped back and was checking.

Thanks,

Jen
 
jbehren said:
Thanks for your responses!!! Yes, 2013. I have been to confession many, many times since then. I never asked the priest about this situation because I tend to be scrupulous, thought I was okay, and put it out of my head a long time ago. Just popped back and was checking.

Thanks,

Jen
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If you’ve ever made a bad confession in your life (and I don’t mean the one being talked about here), know you have and haven’t mentioned it in confession before, essentially all confessions since have been invalid anyways. The thing to do in that case would be to make a general confession the next time you go, of course mentioning the bad confession(s). Otherwise you’re probably fine. 🙂

This was told to us during a parish mission by a very learned priest. I then remembered I had made a bad confession about 10 years earlier when in high school and had to fix it with a general confession, even though I had been to confession many times since then. He also told me if we’re in mortal sin we very likely know so. If we don’t know for sure then we may not be.
 
jbehren said:
Thanks for your responses!!! Yes, 2013. I have been to confession many, many times since then. I never asked the priest about this situation because I tend to be scrupulous, thought I was okay, and put it out of my head a long time ago. Just popped back and was checking.

Thanks,

Jen
Click to expand...
If you’ve ever made a bad confession in your life (and I don’t mean the one being talked about here), know you have and haven’t mentioned it in confession before, essentially all confessions since have been invalid anyways. The thing to do in that case would be to make a general confession the next time you go, of course mentioning the bad confession(s) and perhaps having mislead the priest as someone else mentioned. If you’ve never made a bad confession, still mention that to the priest during your next confession.

That info on bad confessions was told to us during a parish mission by a very learned priest. I then remembered I had made a bad confession about 10 years earlier when in high school and had to fix it with a general confession, even though I had been to confession many times since then. He also told me if we’re in mortal sin we very likely know so. If we don’t know for sure then we probably aren’t.
 
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