I know that we must obey our confessor, but in the case I am presenting, I did not.

Dear Father Angelo,

I am writing to you once again because I am confused about an issue that has been on my mind for quite some time.

I should mention that, having moved to a new city for a new job, I have gone to confessions with several priests.

I live abroad and periodically return home for family holidays. My brother asked me what my thoughts were concerning his homosexual cohabitation. I told him, without condemnation, that what I have always known and what I have also been told in confession is that two men can feel mutual love, but the Church nevertheless forbids homosexual relationships because it considers them a sin. I also said that the same applies to fornication when two partners engage in sexual intercourse before marriage. 

I won’t hide the fact that my words were very mild because I was afraid of turning my brother even further away from God’s mercy by making him feel guilty.

I also said that the path to becoming children of God is difficult and that we can fall, but God’s mercy is always there to meet us halfway.

I said all this in confession to a new priest in my new city, and he chastised me, saying that sometimes life requires us to be prophets and to speak clearly, telling me to call my brother and remind him of the catechism of the Catholic Church.

After this confession, I did not feel like calling my brother and doing exactly what the confessor asked me to do. However, I remember a phone call (one of the usual periodic ones) in which I advised my brother to go to confession in order to be in God’s grace and receive communion. This was the only thing I felt comfortable saying at that moment (my brother is a believer as we were brought up from the same family).

In the following weeks I started to feel doubtful of my obedience to the request of the confessor, so I brought all this to confession to the priest in the city where I lived before, and to another one as well.

I was told (to my great relief) that the important thing was that, when I had the chance, I talked to my brother and emphasized the importance of going to Mass, and reminded him how much I care about him. They also said that there are appropriate and inappropriate times to say certain things, and that sometimes the right thing to do is to pray. All this seemed enlightening and liberating to me, so I prayed and continued to do so. 

Now I’ll get to the point. Because of convenience, I usually go to confession with the confessor who gave me that advice at the beginning. As I thought in my conscience that the matter belonged to the past, I never brought it up again with him. 

Throughout all this, I have always taken communion and continue to do so because I did not believe with certainty that I was in mortal sin.

However, I always have doubts that I have not obeyed blindly and that I am in sin, perhaps mortal sin, and I think about it almost every time I go to Mass.

I apologize for the length of this message, but I would like your opinion to clarify this doubt. I know you are busy answering many other questions, and I will wait to see if you find the time to answer mine.

In the meantime, I thank you and pray for you and all those who work on this service because it has helped me many times. Some of the answers seem to be perfectly tailored to my situations.

Sincerely,

Francesco

The priest’s reply

Dear Francesco,

1. Your email gives me the opportunity to clarify a few things concerning confession.

Firstly, as your email suggests, it is always advisable to go to the same confessor.

The variety of advice that can come from different confessors who are unfamiliar with the penitent’s problems can be confusing.

Don Bosco’s advice was precisely this: always go to the same confessor so that he becomes like the father of our soul.

In this case, obedience to the confessor becomes precious because we know that God ordinarily manifests his will through his minister precisely in the celebration of that sacrament.

If the words spoken by Our Lord to St. Teresa of Avila, commanding her to obey her confessor even if his words differed from those she had received directly from God, are not enough, there are many testimonies from other saints, in particular St. Faustina Kowalska. How many times did the Lord tell her to obey her confessor?

Here is what the Saint reports: “My daughter, I desire that even in the smallest things, you rely on your confessor. Your greatest sacrifices do not please Me if you practice them without the confessor’s permission; on the other hand, the smallest sacrifice finds great value in My eyes, if it is done with his permission. The greatest works are worthless in My eyes if they are done out of self-will, and often they are not in accord with My will and merit punishment rather than reward. And on the other hand, even the smallest of your acts, done with the confessor’s permission, is pleasing in My eyes and very dear to Me. Hold firmly to this always. Be constantly on the watch, for many souls will turn back from the gates of hell and worship My mercy.” (Diary, no. 639).

It should be noted that when St. Teresa of Avila returned to the confessor, in obedience to what God had told her directly, she found that the confessor now gave her advice that was perfectly in accordance with God’s.

2. Secondly, if you happen to confess to another priest because you need to or perhaps because you are in another country, you will stick to the strict accusation of sins, without asking for specific advice for your life, especially in reference to others, as happened in the case you mentioned to me.

The priest, however much the Lord enlightens him, does not have infused knowledge, and in order to give concrete guidance, he needs to know the life of the person before him. And this cannot be done in an instant.

Therefore, for any advice, you should refer to your ordinary confessor.

3. As for the priest who told you to go home and pick up the phone right away, you realized that the advice was not immediately feasible.

The correct interpretation was given to you by the other confessors when they reminded you of the words of Sacred Scripture, which say, there is “a time to be silent, and a time to speak.” (Qoelet 3:7) (correzione: c’era scritto “3:8”, ma mi sembra sia invece il n.7)

4. St. Thomas, along with many other thinkers of the past, reminds us that our actions must be guided by that wisdom which in theological jargon is also called prudence.

Now, every wise decision, says St. Thomas, must go through three steps: remembering the past, knowing the present situation, and foreseeing the effects or failures of our decisions.

When discussing issues as serious as those related to someone’s life choices, it is necessary to choose the right moment: a sudden phone call while a person is busy with work or other tasks, or because they are not in the right state of mind to effectively listen, can be inappropriate and even disastrous.

When you returned to the priest who had given that advice, you correctly didn’t bring it up.

As the confessors you have talked to in the meantime have reassured you, you can be at peace about this.

I thank you very much for your prayers for me. I gladly return them. I bless you and wish you all the best. 

Father Angelo

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