Please Help: How Specific Should You be in Confession?

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In particular, sins of thought against the 6th and 9th commandments. I you thought impure thoughts or Wanted something impure, then how specific must you be? Does it matter who the thoughts were about, or how long they lasted?
 
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Kind and number. If the priest wants details, he will ask.

“Against the 6th commandment I have sinned X times.”

That will suffice.
 
You do not need to be specific because the intent is what matters. God knows what you are confessing. It would be fine to say, “I entertained an impure thought, two times,” for example.
 
There are some that insist upon this here on CAF, but the reality is that many priests will just say that you mention the sin, and give no details Perhaps because they are busy? I’ve gone to confession with a list and been told to put it away. It depends on the confessor. Agree with TLL
 
I always tell people that less is more. Trust that God is God and knows what you did and why you did it, he mostly just wants to hear you acknowledge it. And trust that Father is an educated man and knows what you’re talking about, and if he doesn’t, he’ll ask. If you say something extremely vague like “I did something I wasn’t supposed to do,” then I’ll follow up, since that could be anything. If you say “I committed sexual sin by myself x number of times,” that’s all I need to know. If you confess pornography, I neither need to know nor particularly care what kind it was (although child pornography would be a graver offense in itself).

Detail is only necessary insofar as it affects the gravity of the sin. A married man having sex outside of marriage has committed a graver act than an unmarried man. A layman who has failed to pray the Liturgy of the Hours has perhaps been mildly lacking in diligence, but he has not transgressed the obligation of the law binding clerics and religious. The one who steals a loaf of bread from a bakery to feed his starving family has incurred far less guilt than the one who stole a loaf of bread to spite a starving man.

So less is more. We run the risk of justifying our sins when we start telling the back story. One brother priest actually interrupts sometimes when the story gets long and convoluted and involves blame for others and says “So what you’re saying is that given the same conditions, you’d commit the sin again? How is that contrition?” Less is more. Be brief, be bold, be gone. Say what you did plainly and humbly, accept your penance (or ask for another if you are unable to do the one assigned of course), and accept the forgiveness of God. It’s really very simple.

-Fr ACEGC
 
I think you also need to mention the object of the desires in a general way.
 
edward_george1 said:
Detail is only necessary insofar as it affects the gravity of the sin. A married man having sex outside of marriage has committed a graver act than an unmarried man.
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So if I desired something that would effect the gravity of the sin, I need to mention that?
 
What do you mean by that? Desires in and of themselves are not sins because they are not usually voluntary acts. A sin is an act. It is not a feeling, not a desire, not a random intrusive thought, not something someone else said or did. It is something you choose to do.
 
I was tempted to want to commit a sin and I deliberately liked that desire, harbored it, and thought about it.
 
In general, specific details are only necessary when they change the nature of the sin or incur an additional sin (i.e. if one stole something from the church, adding sacrilege to theft).
 
That doesn’t sound like it was grave. Sins of thought rarely are. It sounds instead like the kind of concentric thinking that occurs with scruples. Have you sought help for scruples with a regular confessor or with a priest outside of confession?
 
I often tell penitents for whom it’s been a while that I’ve been a priest for a little over a year and a half, and I’ve heard about 6500+ confessions. And I’ve heard basically everything, and that was within the first few weeks. There’s very little that shocks me. I treat it like an ER doctor who sees some nasty stuff. It’s not about judging the circumstances. It’s more about bringing healing. That’s all I care about.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Hello.

Also, giving too many details may be an occasion of sin for the confessor. Just a thought… Keep in mind the motive: you are sorry for your sins and want to be with God in your heart – and have that sanctifying grace.

God bless you. Sometimes I think it’s the Bad One who causes all this concern with confession. Please pray for me and thank you for all you do.
 
HGF said:
Does it matter who the thoughts were about, or how long they lasted?
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Not necessarily how long they last, but whether they were given consent of the will.

Committing the will to the desire contracts the evil nature from the sin one expresses with the will the desire to commit. Note that this is not merely a temptation, or a vague passing wish not truly willed, but a consented act of the will towards desiring to commit that sin. In a case like this any details affecting the nature of the sin would need to be confessed-- for instance, if one explicitly desired to kill his father/brother/whatever, or other such examples (i.e. adultery, incest involving a parent/child vs. otherwise, homosexual behaviour, or any combination of different sins).

For thoughts where there is no explicit desire but rather pleasure obtained from them, I would think a detail that changes the nature of the sin contained in the thought should need to be mentioned if it was clearly consented to specifically, but otherwise just saying “I indulged in impure thoughts X times” would probably be fine.

From Fr. Prummer’s Handbook of Moral Theology:
[A] person who takes deliberate pleasure in adultery sins in a different way than if he were to take delight in incest. However, in practice, it is normally sufficient for the penitent to confess that he had so many thoughts against chastity without mentioning the other circumstances. For such thoughts (which are not accompanied by an evil desire) do not present their object clearly with all its circumstances; they usually pass quickly through the mind making it morally impossible–especially after a long time–to reveal in confession all their circumstances.
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I’m not entirely sure what to make of that, but it would seem to me that if one is fixating specifically on a certain sin and deriving pleasure from that thought, it should be mentioned what it is (however not in great detail-- just what alters the nature of the sin). But I’m not really sure.

This is of course provided that one is actually consenting to the thoughts, and not merely being tempted. Perhaps talk to your priest for advice on this.
 
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