Women and modesty in Confession

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Kind and number

Bless me Father for I have sinned.

It has been BLAH since my last confession.

I have sinned against the 1st commandment 5 times.

Against the 2nd commandment blah times.

Etc.

If your priest wants more detail, he will ask you.
 
What comforts me is knowing that there’s literally nothing I can say that would shock a priest (besides like…murder or something similar lol). But yeah, a priest has heard countless of sexual sins before. It’s probably the one type of sin that keeps making people go back to confession. Don’t stress.
 
Horton said:
You make it sound as though you’ve been doing confession every two weeks for 50 years and actually have some insight to offer. But the reality is you are in RCIA now and will be confirmed at Easter. You will make your first confession some time during Lent. You don’t know what it is like at all. Telling friends you’ve done something wrong in no way compare to going to confession.
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Settle down. You don’t need to be patronizing. I’m baffled as to why you found her comment so infuriating.

If it helps, I’m a cradle Catholic who has confessed many times and don’t see anything wrong in her statement.
 
Horton said:
How about when you won’t let an issue go, and that happens a lot, I just come in to tell you to settle down.
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Knock yourself out, buddy. I’m not as delicate of a flower as you are, apparently.
 
Horton said:
You don’t know what it is like at all.
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Nobody knows what it is like for another person. I can tell you or the OP my own confession experiences and how I cope with my own anxieties, but I’m not her and my confessor is not her confessor. Each situation is going to be different. The best we can do is offer our own experiences and insights and hope we are able to help somehow.
 
I don’t think protecting their confessor’s sensibilities is something women should be especially concerned about. When people give TMI with regard to their sexual sins, it’s almost always out of scrupulosity rather than salaciousness, and few things are less sexy than scrupulosity. I think the padres can handle themselves just fine.
 
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Thanks Father. It’s nice to hear a priest’s perspective. As far as doctors go, no offense but I can generally choose a female doc. 🙂 However, your example does help in that we need to view this as need much like going to the doctor.

I think the issue is not knowing which professional code phrases is best to use with whatever sin. Like one poster mentioned sometimes “impure thoughts” can mean a lot of different things. Honestly sometimes in confession we don’t always know which words are best to use.
 
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LOL well, it’s a good thing I’m not trying to be sexy. Sounds like you’re saying I’m not suppose to be worried about confessing to a male. Noted, thank you. By the way that doesn’t take away from the awkwardness other women feel as well. No crime in asking how they deal with it. And I’m actually not as concerned with the confessor’s sensibilities as the question leads on.
 
Great idea! I will try this. First time I got an a useful answer in these forums. I’ve had many helpful ones, but I will use this. Your answer should have more hearts! Thank you.
 
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AlruwhAlquds said:
Noted, thank you. By the way that doesn’t take away from the awkwardness other women feel as well.
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It’s normal to feel awkward, but compounding it with some special prescription for women to be more modest can lead to scruples and make the whole process even more tedious. I never met a priest who was shocked by what I had to say.
 
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I’m not. I don’t know all the professional code words for sin so I don’t give him the play by play is all…

Like I told the Father above, one poster used “impure thoughts” but another priest asked for details before since it can mean many different things.

I got a useful answer above, no need to help. Just explaining what I meant.
 
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Agatha means well, but I agree that someone who has never gone to confession yet is not going to understand the ins and outs of why a person might feel anxious in there. I have had my own struggles with confession anxiety and it’s not a logical state of mind.
 
I just have to say, I agree that sins, be them sexual or whatever are uncomfortable for all men and women. But confessing sins can be like appearing naked to another person. We have male and female locker rooms and bathrooms for that reason. Women feel better dressing around other women. I find that I have to fight through that during confession and remember that going to a priest is like going to Christ. But that degree of discomfort is there.
 
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Even if they are new, I have been told that priests get to do mock confessions in seminary. I’m sure sexual matters are part of them (one that a former priest mentioned was a woman confessing to cheating on her same-sex partner).
 
To be honest, we hear so many confessions, and we hear so many of the same things over and over, that it’s really hard to shock us. I promise that we don’t think about your sins, even the really sensitive stuff, nearly as much as you do. I have an incredibly long memory, such that I can recall conversations I had decades ago and books I read with near perfect photo recall sometimes. But even I don’t remember hardly anything from the confessions I hear. Even if I try to, I’m usually left just fuzzily remembering a vague recollection of having been in the confessional, with no content to such recollection. So really, it’s nothing to get too worked up about. We hear everything and we remember nothing.

-Fr ACEGC
 
I had a priest tell me once that women feel so much shame in confession and men just want to get over it quickly. Maybe part of the problem is women want to tell mitigating facts. A women told me once she confessed missing mass on Sunday and she went on to tell the priest that she did other good things. Ladies just the sins nothing but the sins.
:roll_eyes:
 
This probably won’t make you feel any better but as a woman I feel the exact same way as you.
I’m comfortable to say “impure thoughts” or “acted on impurity” but anything more detailed then that I don’t feel comfortable saying even though realistically we live in a hyper-sexualised world and everyone has thought about sex or done sexual related things.

I think it helps to think of the “big picture” instead of just focusing solely on our own confession and feelings-IOW being aware that the priest is in the same shoes as us regarding temptations and also focussing on the “why” something is a sin to God rather than the “what” (I hope that makes sense).

This is easier said than done though I know,and I also won’t do a face to face confession without the screen because I feel like what if all the others women at the Church are confessing things like lying,getting mad at their kids,being short with people at work etc and I’m the only one saying all this sex related stuff…each time the priest sees me he’s maybe going to think im a sex maniac 😂

I think this can be even more so if we come from cultures where we don’t generally talk about our sexual feelings with “random” men we are not in romantic relationship with, especially older ones and if we have been previously around the types of guys that would be turned on by such “perception of you being a sexual being” etc…
Maybe it would be helpful to look for a priest of a different culture than yours or one that another female friend has been comfortable confessing with?

It might sound controversial but maybe some women would be more comfortable confessing with gay chaste priests but the Catholic Church doesn’t allow gay (chaste) men to become priests as far as I’m aware.
 
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Father,Will all priests understand what you mean if you do the “vague approach”?

Sometimes it would be nice to have a automated punch a code option system😅.
 
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Ok maybe sister rather than mom? I’ve always found it easier to open up to platonic female friends than male friends.
 
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