Shortest Possible Confession

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YoungApologist3

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I recently started a thread about long confessions (which can be found here), which caused me to wonder, what is the shortest possible confession? What are the absolute minima for the sacrament to be validly performed? For example, if someone was shot (I pray to God that this situation never happens to anybody.) in a large vein or artery, and the person is going to die in twenty seconds or less, could a valid confession go like this?

“Please give me confession, Father.”
“Are you sorry for all your sins?”
“Yes.”
“I absolve you of your sins.”
…and then the priest gives penance, if the penitent has the time.

Would that be a valid confession if there was no time for the person to actually list their sins, or to follow the rubrics?
 
Yes, as long as the priest absolves your sins, that’s totally valid.
 
Yeah idk if that’s even necessary. What about last rites
 
One local priest was telling us about someone who never went to confession for many years. They met at a restaurant, and this person was working at the restaurant. The person never went for confession because of the hectic demands of the job and the fact that she had to look after a family.

The priest requested the person to have a confession (somewhere “private” (?) in a restaurant) and the person refused because the place was not a church, it was a public place.

But he found her later in a part of the restaurant (I think it’s a corner) and absolved her sins.

The lady did not need to confess her sins at all, but upon absolution, she cried so much…

The confession was still valid after all.
 
I think (I’m not even sure) that a person doesent have to even be consious to be absolbed…
 
This has actually happened to me before. I’m not sure if Father misunderstood me and thought “bless me Father for I have sinned” was part of my confession or if he was really short on time that day. This was 15 minutes before Mass and there were about 10 people in line. I was so surprised I didn’t react quickly enough to say… but Father, I didn’t confess my sins yet!
 
Edited because I’m now not sure what I first wrote was correct.

In cases where there is an emergency, like 9/11 with people in burning buildings about to die any minute, the priest can do a general absolution on a whole group, as Fr. Mychal Judge did on 9/11.

So now I have a question about individual (not general) absolution. I’ve heard in the past that normally a person has to come up with at least one sin in order to get absolution. So if you go into confession in a normal, non-emergency situation, and you don’t come up with at least one sin, even if it’s venial, to tell the priest, then you cannot get absolution.
This is what I’ve been told. I remember once as a young child telling the priest I could not think of any sins and he was a bit perturbed but at the time I thought it was just because he felt I had not done a good examination of conscience; since then, I’ve wondered if it was because he wouldn’t be able to give me absolution if I didn’t rattle off at least one little sin.

Obviously if a person is a dying accident victim, maybe they cannot even talk to recite a sin and have to resort to the “squeeze my hand if you’re sorry” or maybe they are even in a coma. I would presume there are exceptions for these kinds of cases.

Under what circumstances can a priest absolve an individual person (not a general absolution) without the person reciting even just one sin? Would be helpful maybe to hear from some actual priests on this.
 
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Zaccheus said:
The shortest possible Confession?

“Guilty. God forgive.”
Click to expand...
Not quite.

The priest must still say “I absolve you”

There is a perennial debate about whether the words “from your sins” is strictly necessary.

But no, “God forgive” is not a valid form of absolution.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
…
Under what circumstances can a priest absolve an individual person (not a general absolution) without the person reciting even just one sin? Would be helpful maybe to hear from some actual priests on this.
Click to expand...
The simple answer is “in danger of death.”
 
I didn’t mean it as the absolution. I meant it as the sinner expressing contrition.
 
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