May We Bring Notebooks To Confession?

[LumenGloriae]

I’m a relatively new Catholic who goes to Confession rather frequently. I often make notes while examining my conscience, and I bring in those notes to Confession to help me remember my sins and to make my confessions as succinct as possible. I try to only list my sins and how many times I committed them, and I rarely take more than 30 or 40 seconds in total.

Is there any reason for me to refrain from bringing notes to confession, and to rely entirely on my memory instead?

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

There is nothing inherently wrong with writing down your sins and bringing it to confession to help you confess. However, it must be kept in mind that there is a real danger that you could leave the notebook or paper somewhere thus exposing to others sins that you did not want to be made public. In such cases after the confession the paper should be carefully destroyed.