Lying in the confessional

[RedDuke50]

When is lying in the confessional a mortal sin? I read on an examination of conscience that it was a mortal sin to lie in confession. So does this mean that if I say I commited a sin but I don’t really know and want to make sure, that I then commited a mortal sin of lying in confession?
Thank you

 

[Aeden]

If you want to make sure whether or not something is sinful, ask the priest hearing your confession. As for whether or not it counts as lying to say you committed a sin when you aren’t really sure, I have no idea. You’d best wait for a priest to answer you that question.

 

[Jayhantz]

Lying in the confessional is always a mortal sin, when the lying is withholding information. For instance, if you committed adultery, but did not want to tell the priest because he knows you and your spouse, then it’s a mortal sin and the confession is invalid. You then have to confess lying in your next confession along with the previous sins.

When you are not sure if you committed a sin, but you want to make sure - that’s fine. Usually the mortal sins will always stick out stronger, but you can confess something to be on the safe side. And no worries if you leave the confessional and when you are driving home you remember something you forgot - you’re still forgiven! Just because you legitimately forgot will not invalidate the confession. Only if you knowingly withhold a sin will it become a mortal sin.

I hope this helps! God Bless.

 

[Bookcat]

If something is “doubtful” one is to say in someway that it is doubtful…but one may forget to do this such can happen. Such is forgetting. etc etc

Ones confessor can guide one best.

 

[Uzziah1]

When is lying in the confessional a mortal sin? I read on an examination of conscience that it was a mortal sin to lie in confession. So does this mean that if I say I commited a sin but I don’t really know and want to make sure, that I then commited a mortal sin of lying in confession?
Thank you

When we were kids, we joked about the otherwise-sinless person going into the confessional and saying, “Bless me father, for I have sinned. I lied one time – now, here, in this confessional!”

We have to be careful not only about judging others, but also ourselves. The Church itself made this point when it substituted “serious sin” for “mortal sin.” Something may be a grave matter, normally the stuff of mortal sin, but perhaps not in “Case X,” because God with His perfect knowledge judges differently than we do. Isaiah 55:8: “My thoughts are not your thoughts…”

 

[Bookcat]

The Church itself made this point when it substituted “serious sin” for “mortal sin.”

Mortal sin = serious sin = grave sin the terms are interchangable.

 

[Uzziah1]

Mortal sin = serious sin = grave sin the terms are interchangable.

Nah! God doesn’t think like that. Remember that big controversy about “situational ethics” in the 1960s? Well, in truth, all ethics are situational. God looks down on your judgments of others, and on my judgments of others, and spits on them.

 

[Bookcat]

Nah! God doesn’t think like that. Remember that big controversy about “situational ethics” in the 1960s? Well, in truth, all ethics are situational.

Your misunderstanding me. The terms are used interchangablly by the Church. The mean the same thing – either on the objective level of the sin itself or the subjective level of committing the sin.

As to situation ethics you are correct that such is not a viable approach.

As to judging others – yes you are correct that you and I do may not “know” if so and so actually has committed a mortal sin (grave sin, serious sin–all meaning the same)

 

[Uzziah1]

Your misunderstanding me. The terms are used interchangablly by the Church. The mean the same thing – either on the objective level of the sin itself or the subjective level of committing the sin.

As to situation ethics you are correct that such is not a viable approach.

As to judging others – yes you are correct that you and I do may not “know” if so and so actually has committed a mortal sin (grave sin, serious sin–all meaning the same)

I think that we are not seeing eye-to-eye.

I say that a “serious sin” can be a venial sin.

Next, all ethics are situational.

 

[Bookcat]

I think that we are not seeing eye-to-eye.

I say that a “serious sin” can be a venial sin.

Next, all ethics are situational.

Serious sin is well always serious sin --always mortal …always grave. The terms are used by the Catholic Church interchangably.

Murder is a mortal sin
Murder is a serious sin
Murder is a grave sin

If I commit murder will full knowledge and deliberate consent:

I commit a mortal sin
I commit a serious sin
I commit a grave sin

Now can a person have a grave (serious) matter and not have the needed knowledge or the needed consent --and thus “commit” a venial sin. Yes. Which is likely what you mean there. But the matter remains serious.

All ethics are not situational. The Church rejects such a idea. There are objective morals. But you likely mean that there is a subjective question of the persons knowledge and/or consent.

But certainly the end does not justify the means. A circumstance or intention can not make “good” what is objectively evil.

 

[johnnyjones]

Does a priest confess his sins to another priest or does he have to go to a Cardinal or Bishop?

 

[Bookcat]

Does a priest confess his sins to another priest or does he have to go to a Cardinal or Bishop?

Any Priest.

 

[Aeden]

Serious sin is well always serious sin --always mortal …always grave. The terms are used by the Catholic Church interchangably.

Murder is a mortal sin
Murder is a serious sin
Murder is a grave sin

If I commit murder will full knowledge and deliberate consent:

I commit a mortal sin
I commit a serious sin
I commit a grave sin

Now can a person have a grave (serious) matter and not have the needed knowledge or the needed consent --and thus “commit” a venial sin. Yes. Which is likely what you mean there. But the matter remains serious.

All ethics are not situational. The Church rejects such a idea. There are objective morals. But you likely mean that there is a subjective question of the persons knowledge and/or consent.

But certainly the end does not justify the means. A circumstance or intention can not make “good” what is objectively evil.

I’m just going to make a suggestion that may break up this flame war. Is Uzziah suggesting that what would normally be a mortal sin may be a venial sin either because you did not have full knowledge? If you did not know that something was a sin, it is not a mortal one, it is a material sin and God won’t hold it against you nor will it separate you like a mortal sin would. Is that what Uzziah was suggesting?

 

[joshua_b]

Does a priest confess his sins to another priest or does he have to go to a Cardinal or Bishop?

The power of absolution is not measured in degrees, it is absolute. Any ordained priest has the power of sacramental absolution, and it is valid to any confessor.

I once heard an anecdote (illustrating the humility of Pope John Paul II) in which it was told that the pope had a priest in a meeting and it was necessary to discipline the priest for some untold reason. After rebuking the priest and telling him to basically “straighten up”, John Paul II, immediately after conclusion, asked the priest to hear his confession.

Somewhat tangential, but I believe that the power to forgive is technically the power of the bishop, and it is through the bishops delegation of that authority and with his permission, that priests have the power of valid sacramental absolution.

 

[Bookcat]

I’m just going to make a suggestion that may break up this flame war. Is Uzziah suggesting that what would normally be a mortal sin may be a venial sin either because you did not have full knowledge? If you did not know that something was a sin, it is not a mortal one, it is a material sin and God won’t hold it against you nor will it separate you like a mortal sin would. Is that what Uzziah was suggesting?

No “flame war”. Rather explanation of terms etc.

I think the last post I posted suggested basically that was what he was suggesting.

Which yes can be the case.

(all things being equal…one could make more distinctions)

 

[Uzziah1]

But certainly the end does not justify the means. A circumstance or intention can not make “good” what is objectively evil.

I’ll deal with this first.

You are wrong, Christian friend. It actually tends to be sinful to not balance means and ends.

A simple hypothetical:

Mass murdering bad guys build two 20 megaton thermonuclear devices, and install each device into container ship containers and bury one such container in a container pile in one 6000 container container ship, and the other device in a container pile in a second 6000 container container ship.

One anchors in Charleston Harbor and is due to detonate at 9:45 a.m. The other anchors in New York Harbor and is due to detonate at 10:00 a.m.

At 9:43 a.m., a spy organization from a country friendly to America calls the White House and reports on the two boats, their contents, and detonation schedule.

Skeptical, the White House waits for 9:45 to come around.

Boom. Charleston Harbor and 1,000,000 people are gone.

Shocked, the President calls the Joint Chiefs, who report that careful inspection by New York authorities wit binoculars reveals that there is a man on top of the container pile on the New York ship in a lounge chair holding what appears to be a well-manufactured spring loaded dead man switch.

The President says, “What can we do?”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs reveals that this problem has already been foreseen, and a protocol is already in place. 50 miles south of Manhattan, in Burlington County, New Jersey, is McGuire AFB. There a Tomahawk Missile equipped with a very small, high-yielding neutroin bomb lies in a shed, ready for launch at a moment’s notice. If the Tomahawk delivers the neutron bomb before detonation of the ship’s weapon and explodes just above the ship, the neutron shower will cause mass doublings with the thermonuclear device’s primary’s fissionable core, before compression, poisoning the primary beyond repair, preventing anything more than a conventional detonation.

There is one hitch: Whereas if the thermonuclear device goes off, 10,000,000 must die, if the neutron bomb goes off, 10,000 must die.

The President yells, “I DON’T WANT TO ORDER THE DEATH OF 10,000 HUMANS!”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs says, "Mr. President, the end – 10,000,000 dead – CLEARLY justifies the means – 10,000 dead. By a factor of a thousand. For heaven’s sake, LAUNCH.

The President launches. 10,000 die. The President resigns.

Should the President go to Hell for killing 10,000? Or does the end justify the means?

 

[Bookcat]

I’ll deal with this first.

I am not getting into long drawn out sinerios. I will refer you to the Catechism and Veritatis Splendor. The ends do not justify the means (CCC 1753, 1759, 2399).

I did not read the long story there.

But I will note that the “principle of double effect” is likely what your going to seek to explore. I am well aware of such and it does not ever violate the “ends do not justify the means”. One of the very requirements is that the good effect can not be obtained by means of the evil. Any legit application of the Principle of Double effect or Just War Principles etc…will never involve the “ends justifying the means”. The end can never make an intrinsically evil means good.

But we have taken the tread off topic… so I bid you a splendid continued Easter Octave.

 

[RedDuke50]

Thank you for all of your responses.