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Don_Ruggero
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You need not worry. From what you describe, you did not invalidate your confession. You omitted something that you found yourself unable to express in an instant in time, because you were unintentionally in a face to face confession. There is a difference between choosing freely to conceal something and finding oneself actually unable to verbalise it because of oneās abilities.
You also confronted a situation of surprise. Of course, you could have simply turned around and left the confessional ā but often a person in such a situation reacts without thinking because they are shocked and on a sort of auto-pilot. And they have only a split second to react. That is the moment you look back on and say āOh! Why didnāt Iā¦ā You werenāt able to think it through and proceed in the best way possible. That is not a moral fault.
One of the things that I became very sensitive to so many years ago as a very young priest was the temperament of penitents who were really unable to verbalise certain things in confession and working with those penitents.
The inability could be for any number of reasons, some of them profoundly debilitating. Other clinicians can encounter the same phenomenon but with a different manifestation or presentation.
There are circumlocutions that one can use, of course, as @OraLabora has said. Some penitents have needed to write down the sin for me to read as opposed to saying it verballyā¦which was fine. There was no problem to accommodate that.
If you are able to confess normally behind the grill, then just mention the next time, simply, that you found yourself unintentionally in a face to face confession in which you found yourself unable to verbalise an impure act with yourselfā¦if the confessor has any experience and any compassion, he will understand the plight you found yourself in.
Pope Francis gave a truly marvelous talk in Rome to confessors from all over the world. It was absolutely spell-binding. His central line was āThe confessional is not supposed to be a torture chamber!ā Which is true.
Be at peace.
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Don_Ruggero
Guest
Thankfully, most of us are, indeed, not idiots. We try hard to avoid such creatures as confessors. Of course, those who manage to make it through to priesthood do, ultimately, operate each according to their gifts and abilities.Not all of us confess in English
Most priests are not idiots, and in particular a regular confessor will get to know what you mean. Priests will also ask if another party was involved. If not, the meaning becomes pretty clear. Priests are also pretty sensitive to a penitentās embarrassment, and wonāt seek to needlessly make the penitent even more uncomfortable.
When you have had the blessing of an exceptional academic and pastoral formation, that makes a very great difference. And when you have heard tens of thousands of confessions across years and years and years, that makes its own grand difference, too.
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jas84173
Guest
Just remember in the CCC regarding masturbation, and I only am bringing this one up because the many donāt post this part when making us who struggle with it feel bad.
To form an equitable judgment about the subjectsā moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability
Thus you may depending on your situation only be committing venial sin or no sin at all!
To form an equitable judgment about the subjectsā moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability
Thus you may depending on your situation only be committing venial sin or no sin at all!
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