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Question: In what detail must one confess to a priest the sins of impurity or other sins that one have committed? When you quote Jean Gerson, you say that one must confess every single detail, but I don’t agree with this. Jean Gerson, Oeuvres Complétes: “What a young boy should tell in confession: I sometimes stroked myself or others, urged by disorderly pleasure; I fondled myself, in my bed and elsewhere, something I would not have dared to do if people had been there. Sometimes the priest cannot absolve such fondling. If they are not confessed and the details given, whatever the shame, one cannot be absolved, and the confession is worthless: one is destined to be damned for ever in Hell. The action and the way it has been done must be told.” This is not justice and the Church does not teach this, and God does not require such details to be given, since the one confessing could think that his confession will tempt the priest, or that this priest is a pedophile, or that the priest will tell the sin to others, or he could forget his sins, or many other reasons, and so, one is not obligated under pain of sin to confess all the details.

Answer: Apart from the legitimate excuse of a person honestly forgetting some of his sins, excuses when confessing one’s sins will never be lawful or permitted, and all those who tries to excuse themselves from providing the necessary details, will be damned. Here are some condemnations that shows that details in confession must be given.

Pope Alexander VII, Various Errors on Moral Matters (# 24), Sept. 24, 1665: “Voluptuousness, sodomy, and bestiality are sins of the same ultimate species, and so it is enough to say in confession that one has procured a pollution.” – Condemned statement by Pope Alexander VII. (Denz. 1124)

Pope Alexander VII, Various Errors on Moral Matters (# 25), Sept. 24, 1665: “He who has had intercourse with an unmarried woman satisfies the precept of confession by saying: “I committed a grievous sin against chastity with an unmarried woman,” without mentioning the intercourse.” – Condemned statement by Pope Alexander VII. (Denz. 1125)

Pope Innocent XI, Various Errors on Moral Matters (# 50), Mar. 4, 1679: “Intercourse with a married woman, with the consent of her husband, is not adultery, and so it is enough to say in confession that one had committed fornication.” – Condemned statement by Pope Innocent XI. (Denz. 1200)

Pope Innocent XI, Various Errors on Moral Matters (# 58), Mar. 4, 1679: “We are not bound to confess to a confessor who asks us about the habit of some sin.” – Condemned statement by Pope Innocent XI. (Denz. 1208)

And the Council of Trent teaches the following concerning confession and the details which must be given in confession:

The Council of Trent, Session 14, Chapter V, On Confession: “But, whereas all mortal sins, even those of thought, render men children of wrath, and enemies of God, it is necessary to seek also for the pardon of them all from God, with an open and modest confession. Wherefore, while the faithful of Christ are careful to confess all the sins which occur to their memory, they without doubt lay them all bare before the mercy of God to be pardoned: whereas they who act otherwise, and knowingly keep back certain sins, such set nothing before the divine bounty to be forgiven through the priest: for if the sick be ashamed to show his wound to the physician, his medical art cures not that which it knows not of. We gather furthermore, that those circumstances which change the species of the sin are also to be explained in confession, because that, without them, the sins themselves are neither entirely set forth by the penitents, nor are they known clearly to the judges; and it cannot be that they can estimate rightly the grievousness of the crimes, and impose on the penitents, the punishment which ought to be inflicted, on account of them.”

Concerning the confession, one must confess every single sin one remembers as well as in what way they were done, and one should have thought on the shame of confessing it when one committed the act. The church teaches that all must be confessed, and thus, no detail can be left out. It is the priest’s job to hear it, so it is mortally sinful to leave it out or minimize the severity of the sin. The Church has taught that all sins must be confessed, and in the priest’s job, he must hear in what sinful and shameful way the sin has been performed in order to judge the severity of the crime. The priest is a judge according to the Church’s teaching, and hiding a mortal sin will always end in damnation and eternal fire.

The Catholic Church teaches that Our Lord Jesus Christ through the apostles established a human priesthood with divine authority to forgive sins and to absolve men from guilt and bring them into a state of forgiveness and reconciliation with God. The Catholic Church teaches that this is no mere formality, but that the priest stands in the place of God as judge and performs a judicial act.