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Good morning Father Angelo,

I wanted to ask you how to behave when I have doubts in confession.

Sometimes I remember sins committed before my conversion about 5 years ago.

Clearly 5 years ago I made a general confession when I confessed all my sins, or at least that was my intention.

With time, however, even after years, it happens that I remember some sins that I did not confess in the general confession.

For example, the last time I remembered that, in addition to seeing pornographic images and performing impure acts (sins that I confessed), I shared  such images and videos with my “friends”, thus favoring the commodification of woman and sexuality, and also making others fall into my own sins, turning them even further away from God.

So I wonder: how should I behave in these cases?

Must I always confess before Communion the sin which I remembered or can I receive it and confess even a few days later?

I also asked this to some confessors, but they could not give me a clear and satisfactory answer.

In the meantime, not knowing how to behave and being in this doubt, I made Communion every day and after a few days I confessed. Did I do well or was it better to be careful and give up taking communion?

That is my second doubt.

Thank you so much for your availability and for the valuable service you do for all of us through the site.

Andrea

The Priest’s answer

Dear Andrea,

1. since it is only an oversight, in the meantime you can make Holy Communion.

You will accuse sins in a subsequent confession, without haste, for you are already in God’s grace.

2. The reason why it is necessary to confess serious sins forgotten and which have already been absolved together with others is that the charge of sins is of divine right.

The Lord implicitly stated this when instituting this sacrament, he said: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (Jn 20:23).

Since this is the sacrament of Christian healing, the priest confessor could not indicate the appropriate therapy if he did not know the evil of which the penitent is affected.

In the celebration of the sacrament of penance, the priest is both judge, father, teacher and doctor.

It is therefore an indispensable grace to be able to accuse sins in order to enjoy such a healthy medicine.

3. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reports in this regard a passage from the Council of Trent: “When Christ’s faithful strive to confess all the sins that they can remember, they undoubtedly place all of them before the divine mercy for pardon. But those who fail to do so and knowingly withhold some, place nothing before the divine goodness for remission through the mediation of the priest, “for if the sick person is too ashamed to show his wound to the doctor, the medicine cannot heal what it does not know” (DS 1680).

4. I am glad of the grace that the Lord is granting you: to remember and to mourn your sins.

We read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “In this sacrament, the sinner, placing himself before the merciful judgment of God, anticipates in a certain way the judgment to which he will be subjected at the end of his earthly life. For it is now, in this life, that we are offered the choice between life and death, and it is only by the road of conversion that we can enter the Kingdom, from which one is excluded by grave sin [Cf 1 Cor 5,11; Gal 5,19-21; Ap 22,15 ]. In converting to Christ through penance and faith, the sinner passes from death to life and “does not come into judgment. (Jn 5,24)” (CCC 1470).

5. I advise you to always go to the same confessor because he might tell you not to return to the sins of the past life.

Well, if he says so, you will gladly follow his lead.

Sometimes you could run the risk of being a victim of scruples.

Some people think they are right to multiply confessions by running from one priest to another. But this is wrong.

Peace is found only by obeying what the priest as minister of Christ says in confession.

Also in this regard how precious is the binomial oboedientia et pax (obedience and peace)

6. On the second question you asked me, you did well to receive Holy Communion every day. You were in fact in the grace of God.

7. The Catechism of the Catholic Church concludes its exposition on the sacrament of penance with these words: “Christ is at work in each of the sacraments. He personally addresses every sinner: “My son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk 2:5); He is the physician tending each one of the sick who need him to cure them. He raises them up and reintegrates them into fraternal communion” (CCC 1484).

I wish you all the best for the year just begun, I bless you and I remember you in prayer.

Father Angelo