Resitution for lost items?

[_L]

According to the Catechism we are obliged to make restitution if we have stolen things from people, or purposely damaged their property. But my question is in regards to lost items, or things broken accidentally. For example recalling textbooks from school from years ago that I had misplaced and never returned (and no longer have), or for instance recalling accidentally breaking something in the school that was later on fixed. Am I under any obligation to make restitution for such things? Obviously there was no malicious intent here, so according to the Church what sort of obligation am i under here? I have brought such instances up in confession sort of inviting the priest to give me advice on what my obligation is but the priest just seemed to ignore that part of my confession.

 

[Matthew_Holford]

According to the Catechism we are obliged to make restitution if we have stolen things from people, or purposely damaged their property. But my question is in regards to lost items, or things broken accidentally. For example recalling textbooks from school from years ago that I had misplaced and never returned (and no longer have), or for instance recalling accidentally breaking something in the school that was later on fixed. Am I under any obligation to make restitution for such things? Obviously there was no malicious intent here, so according to the Church what sort of obligation am i under here? I have brought such instances up in confession sort of inviting the priest to give me advice on what my obligation is but the priest just seemed to ignore that part of my confession.

I would not be too worried about these things from the past. If you went into a supermarket with the intent of stealing items and then stole them you would have acted with malice. You should then make the appropriate restitution. That is not the same as breaking something by accident. There is no malice intended. If these really bother you tell the priest how much this is troubling you. Make sure that the priest understands that these things really matter to you. We often assume we’ve told the priest how concerned we are and are then upset when he doesn’t seem to deal with it. We do need to make sure he understands how troubling something is to us.