Valid confessions and mortal sin

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I know that if you invalidate your confession by knowingly withholding a mortal sin or lying then you are still in a state of mortal sin .

What about in the case of a priest for whatever reason does not say (or you got the sense he didn’t say) the formula “I absolve you from your sins” when you are confessing mortal sin? This happened to me once and I went back the next day. Did I need to? This would not be a valid confession without the formula but at least you went and confessed in good faith?
 
The validity of this sacrament relates to the absolution. If the priest doesn’t use the correct formula which is, “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit”, the absolution is not actually given. If it were me I would ask there and then if father would give me the absolution, assuming, of course, that he is granting me absolution.
 
My senior pastor told me that “I forgive you of your sins” instead of “I absolve you” would still be valid but illicit. He’s a older priest too, very orthodox. I trust him. However, he also said he can’t understand why any priest would want to tamper with the formula.

This question was also addressed in the ask a apologist section years ago. You can look it up. A priest who was a apologist on Catholic Answers pretty much said the same thing. Valid but illicit.
 
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Why should it be any different than the Eucharist? If the words are wrong there it’s not a valid consecration as far as I know. Or is this also valid but not licit?
 
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LaughingBoy1503 said:
My senior pastor told me that “I forgive you of your sins” instead of “I absolve you” would still be valid but illicit. He’s a older priest too, very orthodox. I trust him. However, he also said he can’t understand why any priest would want to tamper with the formula.

This question was also addressed in the ask a apologist section years ago. You can look it up. A priest who was a apologist on Catholic Answers pretty much said the same thing. Valid but illicit.
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I’ve experienced this “I forgive you” stuff as well, and I do not buy the “valid but illicit”. I consider it invalid, despite what other priests say and when this happened to me, I went back to another priest right away, told what happened, repeated the confession and got a proper absolution.

Absolution and forgiveness are not the same thing. I can be forgiven with an act of perfect contrition. But I cannot receive Communion (ordinarily) until I am juridically absolved.
 
I think to be safe and if you are afraid you could confess again, but you did have good faith and did go to confession. It was the priests fault you were not properly absolved so even if you didn’t reconfess it I would believe that God had probably forgiven you
 
There should be something in canon law that would settle the question for certain. Does anyone know if that’s the case?
 
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