Is hiding something from someone a sin?

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Ilovejesus1234

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Is hiding something from someone, lets say my dad, about my past and the bad things I used to do, a sin? I already told my mom and partially my brother, but not my dad, he tends to overeact and get very mad. I just don’t want to hurt him mainly because of the anger it will create.

Its mainly to protect him from feeling hurt, betrayed and mad. It has been a long time but I prefer not to tell him.
 
No, your father doesn’t necessarily have the right to know about the sins you’ve committed. You have no obligation to reveal your sins to anyone except to God and/through a priest.

If your father did ask you about the sins you’ve committed, that would be wrong on his part. If you’re willing to discuss it with him you can, but you have every moral right to tell him you prefer not to talk about it and would rather discuss it only with a priest or spiritual advisor.
 
Okay cool, but also if anybody would like to post let them do so. I wanna get other people’s opinions in on this too, so it will be truly verifiable
 
Ilovejesus1234 said:
Okay cool, but also if anybody would like to post let them do so. I wanna get other people’s opinions in on this too, so it will be truly verifiable
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I agree entirely with Domiy’s post.

You don’t need a good reason to not tell your father, or anyone, else things about yourself that you don’t want to. “I don’t want to” is a good enough reason. Your private life is yours to share as you want.
 
Ilovejesus1234 said:
Is it contrary to anything of the church law?
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This is a question about morals, not church law. The moral law is written in our hearts, and the Church only discerns and teaches it for us. The Church didn’t make adultery a sin, or speaking the Lord’s name in vain a sin. They are sins for everyone - Catholic or not.

There is no moral law which obliges us to tell our parents more than we want to about ourselves - particularly about our sins. The key words here are “want to”. If you don’t want to, then don’t.

There is the matter of retaining a good relationship with your parents. In general, relationships include passing on information about ourselves - good and bad. We might be able to build a better relationship with our parents by passing on some of the bad stuff. But not necessarily. It’s your choice.

This is assuming that you are mature and the information is not about something which will affect them directly. Let’s say you crashed a car - but it wasn’t too serious and you didn’t injure anyone. You would not be obliged to tell your parents. But let’s say you were drunk and you killed someone, and you all live in a small town. The news will probably end up in the papers and cause distress to your parents. In that case it would be polite to let them know before it hit the papers.
 
Well I know that but I just don’t like holding secrets. Is there any case where that would be contrary to what the catholic church teaches or whatever part of the law that is?
 
Domiy said:
No, your father doesn’t necessarily have the right to know about the sins you’ve committed. You have no obligation to reveal your sins to anyone except to God and/through a priest.

If your father did ask you about the sins you’ve committed, that would be wrong on his part. If you’re willing to discuss it with him you can, but you have every moral right to tell him you prefer not to talk about it and would rather discuss it only with a priest or spiritual advisor.
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Sums it up for me.

:yup:
Ilovejesus1234 said:
Well I know that but I just don’t like holding secrets. Is there any case where that would be contrary to what the catholic church teaches or whatever part of the law that is?
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There are some cases where holding secrets can be sin, but it is not sinful in itself to hold a secret from your parents. It depends entirely on the secret. As Domiy said, the only person you need to tell your sins to is a priest in confession.

It may be the case that telling a secret is sinful - if it causes the other person hurt and achieves no good. Let’s say you stole something valuable from his workplace years ago. You were caught and his colleagues found out, but didn’t tell him - to save him distress. You replaced the item. Until now he has been protected from the distress. To tell him now may be sin.

It depends entirely on the secret, on whether the person needs to know, and what the result of telling them may be. But holding a secret is, itself, not a sin and may be a virtue.
 
Some more secrets which would be better not told…

You saw a romantic letter which your mother wrote to another man, while she was married to your dad. However, your parents are still married and your mother seems to have let go of the other man. To tell your father that secret now would be a serious sin.

You won a sporting event by cheating. Noone ever found out, and the memory of that event is precious to your dad. He may just have a laugh if you told him now that you cheated, but imagine if it were to seriously hurt and dissapoint him. Better off not to tell him.

You say in your own post:
Ilovejesus1234 said:
…I just don’t want to hurt him mainly because of the anger it will create.

Its mainly to protect him from feeling hurt, betrayed and mad. It has been a long time but I prefer not to tell him.
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So, you think that telling him will hurt him and make him mad. Then don’t tell him, unless there is some good reason that he needs to know.
 
No, you are not breaking **any **moral or Church laws by withholding your sins from your father. Sins are a deeply personal matter. To tell someone aside from a priest about your sins is like telling them what colour underwear you’re wearing; it’s both irrelevant and inappropriate (unless it was a sincerely mutual discussion).

Trust me, I really don’t think your parents want to know about your sins either.
 
Good analogy! “like telling them what colour underwear you are wearing”

👍
 
Thank you guys, i think I am just a little scrupulous for various reasons, so sorry 4 the bother haha (: things are getting better though
 
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