Dear Joe:

Welcome to the Church.

God knows your heart and what you wanted to confess even if the priest did not want to hear the whole list. All your sins were forgiven when he absolved you. You are not at fault.

But, you need to understand the nature of the Sacrament of Confession. What the Church requires is to confess kind and number and that is all that is needed. Long explanations of the circumstances and details are not required and actually can be an element of pride.

Point-blank, it does not matter what the story is, the commission of the sin is the only issue, not the story behind it.

God knows the circumstances, but for us to go into great detail is actually an attempt, perhaps subconscious, to "explain ourselves", to make excuses for our behavior, to let the priest know that we are not all that bad because there were reasons for the sin. All this is pride.

As for a General Confession, it is a little different. A General Confession is a life review. All but the most recent sins have already been confessed and absolved. The value of a General Confession is to help to understand the arc of one's life, the trends over time, in order to better know who one is and to see how one has grown or needs to grow more. Because a General Confession is more than a regular confession this cannot be done during the normally scheduled confession times; an appointment needs to be made with a priest who knows that this is to be a General Confession. But, even in a General Confession, getting into long explanations is really a prideful thing unless it is a discussion to figure out why one does what they do.

If you are talking about First Confession upon entering the Church, that is a regular confession in which you confess the sins on your list without a bunch of explanations.

There are not that many sins in the world that a regular confession would take that long.

For example, let us say that the sin of shoplifting needs to be confessed. One does not say, "Father, forgive me, for I have sinned... I shoplifted at {list all 10 stores and the circumstances of each}."

Rather, one says something like, "Father forgive me for I have sinned... I shoplifted ten times." That's it. If the priest wants to hear details of the circumstances, he will ask.

Another example of what not to do: "Father forgive me for I have sinned... I was uncharitable to {give a list of 25 people, family and friends and the circumstances of each}."

Rather, one says something like, "Father forgive me for I have sinned... I was uncharitable to my parents, and siblings, and to at least twenty other people."

The bottomline is that there is no excuse for sin, thus it does not matter what the story is behind the sin. When you go to confession just give your list, without explanations and details unless the priest asks you, and give the number of times you committed that sin if you know.

As for the sins on your list that the priest did not listen to, they are forgiven, but you may wish to confession them anyway the next time you go to the Sacrament. But, only kind and number, not all the details and specifics.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary