Q&A for How to Go to Confession

Don't worry! The priest will understand and help you recite the prayer. They've performed the sacrament many times, and know how nervous you might be.

Only baptized Catholics can take part in the sacrament, but you may be able to speak to a priest about your sins anyway. Call your local church and explain your situation, and see if they can schedule a less formal meeting.

If you know it by heart, that's great, but if you need to read from a prayer book, that's totally okay. The only thing that matters is that you mean the words you are saying.

Write them down if you're afraid you might forget them, but you have to say them out loud.

As with any other confession, you will enter the confessional and kneel. Make the sign of the cross and the priest will tell you when to start confessing. When you actually confess, don't be scared or embarrassed. There is not a sin that the priest hasn't heard. Say (approximately) the number of times you have committed the mortal sin since your last confession.

Before you go into the confessional, pray to the Holy Spirit to give you the courage to make a good confession. Remember that the priest is bound by the seal of confession, so he cannot tell anyone.

If you die with an unrepented mortal sin on your soul, you will go to hell. But if you have committed a sin, sincerely repented of it, and died before you could make it to confession, then God will have mercy on you.

That depends on the priest you see.

If you committed any sin, whether mortal or venal, for it to be forgiven you must go to confession and confess it to the priest.

Yes. In the U.S., most Catholic children celebrate their first confession in the fourth grade.

Yes, you can. Sometimes you don't have time to do you penance before Mass starts, and so it's fine to receive Communion. Just make sure you don't forget to do all your penance.

No, that's not a sin, but I would consider it a sin if you said it out loud. You should try to avoid thinking about curse words as much as possible though.

Priests are humans and all humans occasionally act rude, unfortunately. Some people (priests and nuns included) are mean and unfair to young people. Talk to another priest and pray for the priest who was rude to you; God will bless you for it.

You can confess any sin to a priest.

A baptized Christian may go to a Catholic priest for confession.

A venial sin is a minor sin; mortal sins are extremely serious sins, like murder and adultery.

You can say something like: "Father, I'm not sure I believe in God, what can I do about it?" Don't worry to be feeling this way, many saints have passed through this "dark night of the soul": it is just a test from God to clean your love for Him from the love for His gifts. This is for you to develop a pure love for God for God's sake only.

Yes, this is appropriate to do. The moment that you finish confession, your soul is clean.

In order to go to confession, you have to kneel down in the confessional. You start by saying "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." The priest will ask you how long it has been since your last confession. Since this is your first time, you can say that. The priest will ask you what sins you have committed. You can then tell the priest what your sins are. When you are done, he will ask you to recite the Act of Contrition. Most confessions offer a prayer card with the Act of Contrition on it. The priest will give you a penance, which is something you have to do. It is usually a prayer. After that, the priest will dismiss you and you can go.

Using the format seen above you could say, “Forgive me father for I have sinned, I do not know how long it has been since my last confession”. The priest will be understanding.