Priest told me that he didn't think I was sufficiently repentant

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Oregonblueberry

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I went to confession today for the third time in three weeks, which is how long I’ve been back with the church after a long gap. After I confessed, the priest told me it didn’t seem like I was making enough of an effort to amend my life because I kept coming back so often. He said he wasn’t sure if he should absolve me if I wasn’t taking the sacrament seriously, although he did eventually absolve me after I insisted that I understand the sacrament and that I had repented.

I’m honestly really shaken up by this. I’ve been struggling a lot these past three weeks, and it’s true that I have stumbled quite a bit, but I also just radically changed my entire life three weeks ago. I also have a lot of issues with scrupulosity, which is why I tend to confess a lot of sins that I maybe don’t need to confess (as hard as I’ve tried, I’ve never been able to convince myself that venial and doubtful sins aren’t necessary to confess, and I have a lot of doubtful sins since I’m still figuring things out), and why this event hit me pretty hard. I believe my repentance was sincere but is my belief enough? If a priest is so convinced that I haven’t repented that he would consider withholding absolution, maybe that’s a sign I haven’t been taking confession seriously enough. It’s driving me crazy.

I’m not sure what to do. Part of me wants to e-mail him and ask for clarification on why he thought I hadn’t repented, or maybe just explain to him that part of the reason why I have such a laundry list to confess is because of scrupulosity. Or ask him if he thinks I should re-do my previous confessions, since he seems to think they were invalid.
Another part of me thinks I should just trust myself to know whether or not I’ve properly repented, and not worry about what he says. Maybe I should go to a different parish for confession, but then that feels like I’m just running away from what I don’t want to hear, and maybe that’s a sign that he was right. But I’m also not sure that I could handle going back to him for confession even if I wanted to, I almost had a total breakdown after what he said and I would be terrified that he might say something else next time. I have more than enough anxiety over confession as it is and I don’t think I can take much more.

How would you handle this? Would you continue business as usual, contact the priest, or find another confessor?
 
Oregonblueberry said:
Part of me wants to e-mail him and ask for clarification on why he thought I hadn’t repented,
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The seal of confession would prevent him from discussing your confession with you.

It sounds like the issues with scrupulosity are the reason he refused you. None of us can really know for sure. My advice would be to see if you can meet with him outside of confession and ask for help for your scrupulosity. You might also seek counseling, to deal with the issues that tend to underlie such a thing.

You are in my prayers.

-Fr ACEGC
 
What do you mean by that? He wouldn’t know I have issues with scrupulosity unless he guessed it by the way I confessed, and why would that be a reason to refuse me?

I will contact him about general guidance, though - I have been meaning to look for help with scrupulosity and maybe if nothing else, this is a sign that I can’t put it off any longer.
 
Schedule a meeting with him when possible. You might want to ask him to help you find a spiritual director.

God Bless
 
Priests are just humans. They don’t know your back story. Personally I would go to another priest. If another priest tell you something similar, then you should examine your motives more closely. Just my two cents.

Incidentally, I was listening to my priest on his YouTube channel and he said if a priest is mean to you, don’t even stay for absolution. Just say thank you father and leave, because you shouldn’t have to endure that when you’re vulnerable.
 
It might also be that you didn’t actually confess any sins. If someone comes into my confessional and confesses to a bunch of things that aren’t actually sins, like bad feelings, worry, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, bad things happening to them, problems in their families, etc, and don’t actually mention any sinful action that they willfully did, then I refuse them. I try to get them to actually confess sins, but if they don’t, I politely send them away.

Yes, we can guess that someone is scrupulous from the way they confess. When you’ve done this for a little while you learn to pick up on it. I learned it partly from hearing confessions and partly from reading this forum.

And if you’re not actually Catholic yet, that is also a reason to refuse someone.
 
If the OP were repeating sins in his co session, could the priest have thought the OP was being presumptuous and sort of using Confession as a get out of jail card?
 
Lucy_1 said:
Incidentally, I was listening to my priest on his YouTube channel and he said if a priest is mean to you, don’t even stay for absolution. Just say thank you father and leave, because you shouldn’t have to endure that when you’re vulnerable.
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I’m not sure this is the best advice, to be honest. Ideally, the priest isn’t mean to anyone. But leaving before absolution isn’t going to do you any good.
 
I’m not sure what you mean by a “get out of jail card” exactly, but if someone is sitting there repeating the same sins over and over, then yes, that might be cause to interrupt and point that out to them, and guide them to confess sins, and only sins, and not in tons of detail.
 
I may be a Protestant, but if you’re really trying to change your life, and you really are shaken up, I would say that is evidence of your repentance. Embrace it. No priest is going to be able to show you everything you did wrong because priests are human. They can offer guidance where they are not flawed, and as I understand it, you can pray for the intercession of saints precisely because humans are flawed.

That means that ultimately, your decision to change your life is between you and God. And I’m not going to lie to you, it can be extremely difficult. I would know. Despite being a Christian, I have done a lot of awful things and justified all of them through intent. I literally machine-gunned people in war and I have no idea how many I killed or maimed. I have tried for years to comfort myself in the idea and evidence that they were terrible people, and they demonstrably were, but if Christ is in your heart you always know that you could do better. It kills me to know that I didn’t when could have, and that has made me better.

If you have that, that is your repentance. The weight of sin, however necessary, will always crush you. It is clearly burdening you now, so fearful are you of saying the wrong thing. It kind of defeats the purpose of confession to begin with. But it also says something else, it speaks to your desire to be less sinful. If you could just do that overnight, God wouldn’t have needed to send His only Son, a part of Him made flesh, to show us the way towards divinity. Only He has such purity, and He is ours in redemption.

All that matters is what confessions you make to Him and to yourself. Admit the hard things, and even as a former killer of men, as a Protestant to boot, you have the Church community to help you on your path. Sure, some of them suck, but the larger point is that we are all sinners trying to be better. Understand that, and you will start to become better.
 
Scrupulosity is certainly a reason to refuse absolution and, although from what you’ve said the priest’s choice of words may not have been ideal, I think what he might be trying to say is that you’re not making enough of an effort to distinguish between what does and doesn’t need to be confessed. The problem with emailing him however, is that it’s impossible for him to know who the email is actually from since he obviously doesn’t know your name and the seal prevents him from discussing anything you have said to him in the confessional unless you bring it up with him directly. So you should arrange to meet with him in person and discuss your concerns and scrupulosity - simply shopping around for a more accommodating priest isn’t going to help your problems.
 
If you’re in a state of sin and need absolution, I don’t think I can agree with that. But I probably wouldn’t go back to that priest.
 
edward_george1 said:
The seal of confession would prevent him from discussing your confession with you.
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InThePew said:
… the seal prevents him from discussing anything you have said to him in the confessional unless you bring it up with him directly.
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May a priest discuss a prior confession with you if he’s certain it was you or does the seal prevent him from even speaking about a previous confession with the actual penitent?

I had always assumed that a confessor could discuss a confession with the penitent because no third party was involved.
 
I could see if this person went to anonymous confession, then the priest wouldn’t remember his confession specifically, but if he went face to face, then it’s more likely that the priest would be able to recall and discuss his confession, it seems to me?
 
This thread makes me wonder if, in the time of only anonymous confession, there were “nuisance” penitents, who caused problems by going to confession over nothing, or who were cranks?
Anytime people can do something anonymously, I can see it bringing out some problematic behavior (I’m not suggesting that this is the case here in this thread, just in general in the past).
 
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InThePew said:
Scrupulosity is certainly a reason to refuse absolution and, although from what you’ve said the priest’s choice of words may not have been ideal, I think what he might be trying to say is that you’re not making enough of an effort to distinguish between what does and doesn’t need to be confessed.
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Will all due respect Father, I know scruples first hand, as I used to struggle a lot with scruples. I am convinced that if you choose to withhold absolution from a person struggling with scruples you would only make their struggles even worse. What gave me comfort during my worst times with scruples was knowing that when I left the confessional, I left my sins there too.

Please do not see this as critisicm nor a way to say how you are supposed to work as a priest. But I do think it would be a better approach if priests who recognize scrupulosity when hearing a confession would give absolution, but also advice the penitent to talk with him afterwards or make an appointment to better help the penitent.
I remember as a scrupulous person, I was ashamed of having scruples and thus I did not seek the help of a priest, which I should have. And I believe that if a priest offered to speak with me outside of confession, that might would have made things a little easier. And perhaps he could have helped me to better understand what was sin and what was not.
 
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