Dear June:

I praise God that you want to be honest and complete in your relationship with God and to make a good confession.

The church teaches that we are to confess sins in kind and number. This means that we can confess the category of sin and the number of times we committed that sin.

Using your example about impure and lustful things the following may be appropriate:

"Father forgive me for I have sinned. I accuse myself of lustful imaginations three hundred times, immodesty in dress two times, looking at and reading pornography twenty-five, and once sending pornography to a friend."

This last one is singled out because to send pornography to someone is FAR worse than looking at pornography yourself.

If the priest ask for more details then give them, but essentially confess the kind and number.

In your example you have four different kinds: 1) lust; 2) immodesty; 3) pornography; 4) exposing other people to pornography.

For example, if I shoplifted at Sears, Penny's, Target, and Walmart it is sufficient to confess, "I confess that I shoplifted  four times." Which store is not relevant.

But, be sure to confess the real issues.

We need to be sure that we are confessing all of our sin. For example, I am reminded of the story of a man who came to confession and said, "Father, forgive me for I have sinned. I stole a rope. I was uncharitable to my mother. I stole a rope. I had impure thoughts about my neighbor, I stole a rope."

The priest finally asked, "What is this about the rope?"

The man said, "Well, there was a cow attached."

As for all the things you did before being Baptized you need to remember that ALL your pre-Baptism sins were forgiven and wiped away when you were Baptized.

When you went to the Sacrament of Confession the first time just before you were Confirmed forgave and wiped clean ALL sin from your baptism to the date of your First Confession.

So you started your Catholic life with a clean slate.

The Church teaches the even if you forget mortal sins, when the Priest grants you absolution, ALL sins are forgiven, even the ones you forgot.

It is an old tradition that after you list all your sins to the priest in Confession you end with words like, "For these sins and all other sins that I do not now remember, forgive me Father."

If you later remember a mortal sin from the past, then you can bring it to confession the next time you go, but keep in mind that you have already been forgiven for that sin. When doing that you can just mention to the priest that the sin or sins are those you forgot to mention last time.

I would encourage you to not think of this as an "endless list" since that is not true -- the list is actually rather short. The "list" rather is composed of those things that God has ALWAYS held to be sins, they are violations of Divine or Natural Law. The Catholics do not have a big hairy list of sins, the Protestants have carelessly allowed their list to atrophy due to their lack of magisterial authority to guard the faith.

Other items, such as "eating meat on Friday", are disciplinary issues and are not, in themselves, grave sins. DELIBERATELY refusing to abstain from meat on Fridays is the sin of rebellion and pride, rather than a sin of eating meat.

Bottomline: confess the kind and number of your sins. If you have any doubts about whether or not to mention details, then go ahead and mention the details.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary