Is a confession invalid if you withhold a mortal sin due to embarrassment?

[vistrav]

I was raised catholic, but did not practice for a time. When I began praticing again, I went to confession and confessed some mortal sins but withheld some from embharasment. Some years later, I became aware of the gravity of this and confessed those difficult mortal sins. My question is, do I need to reconfess all the mortal sins I confessed before I knew my error, and has every subsequent confession been invalid since I may still have unforgiven mortal sin?

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Dear V,

Certainly the whole confession is invalid if one deliberatley witholds any mortal sin. But when you confessed the sins that you previously withheld, the other sins that you did confess were forgiven. Whenever we inadvertently don’t mention sins in confession, so long as I we are not deliberately holding them back, those sins are forgiven. When we later remember them, we should mention them the next time we go to Confession as a sign of our sorrow and repentance. But they are already forgiven.

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.