I’m in the process of writing a story and in one scene one of the characters goes to confession. As a baptized Catholic, I SHOULD remember the phrasing used, but as a Recovering Catholic, I’m managed to block them from my mind.
I know it begins, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been X amount of time since my last confession.”…But, then what? What does the priest usually say? “Okay, give me a list of your sins” isn’t correct. :smack:
Also, what are the words used at the end of confession as the priest gives the penance (or whatever it’s called when you have to make things right?)? Isn’t there a standard…“Go and sin no more” or something?
So, can someone with a better memory than mine help me out? This would be for dialogue, so any exact phrasing would be very helpful.
Mods, my apology if this is in the incorrect forum.
I used to imagine, back in the days when I confessed, that I’d someday elicit such a reaction. Apparently I wasn’t nearly as bad as I imagined myself to be.
My Dad’s oldest brother worked hard to be a cynic. My Dad’s younger brother was ordained a priest and assigned to an inner city parish in Chicago. During a large (friendly) family brawl over some point of theology, the older brother tried to squelch the younger brother with some comment about the naïveté of newly ordained priests. The younger brother responded, “One week in the confessional at St. Pete’s and I suspect that I know more about sin than you will ever learn.”
I know quite a few priests. They all report much the same thing. After a few years of hearing confessions they’ve heard it all and it has to be something pretty over-the-top to shock them.
Without going GD, here, I don’t think that the Church has officially ruled on all of those things, so that list is at least partially just the interpretation of whoever put that webpage together. There are also some items not on that list which the Church has ruled on, and arguably should be on the list.
Then you start to tell your sins. Of course, the sin of “impurity” (twice a day since your last confession) is at the top of your list.
Then the priest asks you to describe how it happened, what you were thinking, did you use pornography, were there middle aged men in your impure thoughts, etc., etc.
The priest then said, “go forward and sin no more but you must make your confession more often. My hours are from 4-6 on Wednesdays and Fridays or by appointment in the rectory.”
He told you to say three Hail Mary’s. You threw a football as far as you could to your buddy Larry (who showed you how to masturbate) and you were off the hook until your next confession.
It doesn’t have to be so formal anymore. All priests will except any form of confession as long as it is done with a true heart. They don’t care about any script that you say. You don’t have to say “Bless me father for I have sinned” and you don’t have to tell them how long it has been since your last confession. Priest will say a variety of things at the finish but the gist of it is “go and sin no more”. Most will ask for some form of penance as a sign that you are serious. One time I was told not to butter my bread for a day.
Experienced priests learn that they should say something, so the penitent knows that he is present and listening. Otherwise you will have two people sitting there in the dark silently, each waiting for the other to proceed.
If you’re a priest in a busy church, wasting a minute or 2 on each confession will end up extending the hours you spend in the confessional!
This is an important point. I had not looked over the “mortal sins” link, earlier, but having done so, now, I would be tempted to accuse the author of scrupulosity. There are a number of things on that list that I would never characterize as clearly serious sins. If someone was seriously concerned about an action, I would suggest that they simply discuss it with their confessor rather than relying on some list.
