B
Butaperson
Guest
I’m worried again about the validity of past confessions.
When I gave my general confession, I was very, well, general. I didn’t state the number of times I had committed a certain sin, just that I had done it. For example, over the past 15 years, I must have told hundreds of lies - but all I said in confession was “I have lied”. I may or may not have included “I lied many times”, I honestly can’t remember. But I know there was a lot that I didn’t provide very good information on.
I asked a priest about this in confession, if this could invalidate my confessions, and what he said was “Probably not”. I’m slightly reassured but not fully. Why did he say “Probably not”? I’m just asking here, not to doubt the priest’s advice, but to try and understand why he couldn’t answer with more certainty.
Also, there have been sins that I have left out. There was one sin in my general confession that I was particularly embarrassed to confess - I thought about it, but decided I didn’t need to confess it. I don’t want to talk about it here so I won’t go into specifics…but the definition that I was given in the Examination of Conscience I was using didn’t apply to me, so I left it out. Technically, it was more like specifics pertaining to a different sin that I had confessed, but I wasn’t thinking about it that way at the time. Later, I changed my mind, and I went back and confessed it separately - I said that I had neglected to confess it, not that I had thought it wasn’t sinful and then changed my mind.
As you can see, this is pretty much a doubtful sin. So I guess my real question here is: what do you do if you think you might have committed sacrilege? Do the normal rules of “You can confess it but you don’t have to” apply? Do I need to try to go back and fix this? How do I even start?
I know that I need to talk to a priest about this and I do plan on doing that, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to for a couple of weeks. In the meantime…well, I’m asking here. But I WILL get to a priest, promise.
When I gave my general confession, I was very, well, general. I didn’t state the number of times I had committed a certain sin, just that I had done it. For example, over the past 15 years, I must have told hundreds of lies - but all I said in confession was “I have lied”. I may or may not have included “I lied many times”, I honestly can’t remember. But I know there was a lot that I didn’t provide very good information on.
I asked a priest about this in confession, if this could invalidate my confessions, and what he said was “Probably not”. I’m slightly reassured but not fully. Why did he say “Probably not”? I’m just asking here, not to doubt the priest’s advice, but to try and understand why he couldn’t answer with more certainty.
Also, there have been sins that I have left out. There was one sin in my general confession that I was particularly embarrassed to confess - I thought about it, but decided I didn’t need to confess it. I don’t want to talk about it here so I won’t go into specifics…but the definition that I was given in the Examination of Conscience I was using didn’t apply to me, so I left it out. Technically, it was more like specifics pertaining to a different sin that I had confessed, but I wasn’t thinking about it that way at the time. Later, I changed my mind, and I went back and confessed it separately - I said that I had neglected to confess it, not that I had thought it wasn’t sinful and then changed my mind.
As you can see, this is pretty much a doubtful sin. So I guess my real question here is: what do you do if you think you might have committed sacrilege? Do the normal rules of “You can confess it but you don’t have to” apply? Do I need to try to go back and fix this? How do I even start?
I know that I need to talk to a priest about this and I do plan on doing that, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to for a couple of weeks. In the meantime…well, I’m asking here. But I WILL get to a priest, promise.