How to Go to Confession

The steps of confession, in order

Nothing about this sacrament is improvised. The ordinary shape of the rite is fixed: the priest greets and blesses you; the word of God is read or recalled to “illuminate the conscience and elicit contrition”; you confess; a penance is imposed and accepted; the priest absolves; and the celebration closes with “a prayer of thanksgiving and praise and dismissal with the blessing of the priest” (Catechism 1480).

1. 1 · Examine your conscienceBefore you go. The sacrament “ought to be prepared for by an examination of conscience made in the light of the Word of God” (Catechism 1454). Use the free Examination of Conscience, or the Examination of Conscience for Men if you want the questions sorted by state of life — husband, father, work.
2. 2 · Go at a posted timeAny Catholic parish. Confession times are on the parish website, often before the Saturday evening Mass. You are free to confess “to a legitimately approved confessor of his or her choice, even to one of another rite” (canon 991) — so a parish that is not your own is perfectly allowed.
3. 3 · Kneel or sitBehind the screen, or face to face where the parish offers it. Canon 964 §2 directs that there always be confessionals “with a fixed grate between the penitent and the confessor in an open place so that the faithful who wish to can use them freely.”
4. 4 · Sign of the Cross, and the opening“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been [X] since my last confession.” Say the interval plainly, however long it is.
5. 5 · Confess your sinsThe grave ones in kind and number (canon 988 §1). Plainly, without a speech and without excuses.
6. 6 · Counsel and penanceThe priest may say a few words to you, then gives you a penance — usually prayers, sometimes an act.
7. 7 · Your Act of ContritionHe asks you to express your sorrow. Contrition “occupies first place” among the penitent’s own acts (Catechism 1451).
8. 8 · AbsolutionThe priest absolves you: “And I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Order of Penance, 2023 English translation). You answer: “Amen.”
9. 9 · Thanksgiving, and the penanceThe rite ends in thanksgiving and a blessing (Catechism 1480). Then you go and do what he gave you.

Exactly what to say — word for word

Most men who dread confession do not dread the sins. They dread not knowing the words. Here are the words. There is no magic formula in them; the Church asks for contrition, an honest confession, and the willingness to do the penance. But it helps enormously to have the script.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three months since my last confession. These are my sins.”The opening — the customary greeting in English-speaking parishes

Then say them. One after another, in plain words: what it was and roughly how often. “I lost my temper with my wife, four or five times.” “I looked at pornography, about once a week.” “I missed Sunday Mass twice without a reason.” No sin needs a paragraph of context, and none needs softening. The priest is not keeping score; he is a physician taking a history.

When you have finished the list, close it. A sentence many penitents use:

“This is all I can remember. I am sorry for these and all my sins.”The closing — it hands the conversation back to the priest

And if you lose the thread at any point — the order, the words, your nerve — one sentence solves it:

“Father, I am not sure how this goes. Help me through it.”The sentence that hands the work back to the priest

Say it, and the priest takes it from there — his office is to “lead the penitent with patience toward healing and full maturity” (Catechism 1466). If the gap has been years rather than months, read how to go to confession after years away — the words change slightly and the fears are different.

How to confess a sin: kind and number

The one technical requirement worth learning is this. Canon 988 §1: a member of the faithful “is obliged to confess in kind and number all grave sins committed after baptism and not yet remitted … of which the person has knowledge after diligent examination of conscience.” The Catechism says the same thing about the necessity of naming them: confession to a priest is “an essential part of the sacrament of Penance,” and the mortal sins a penitent is conscious of after a diligent self-examination “must be recounted by them in confession” (1456).

Kind means what the sin actually was — not a category, not a euphemism. “I was unkind” is not a confession; “I mocked my son in front of his sister” is. Number means how many times, as best you honestly know. “Twice.” “About once a week for a year.” “Many times.” Rough numbers are exactly how this is done.

If you are unsure whether something was grave, say it and say that you are unsure. Judging that is the confessor’s work, not yours. Our guide to what makes a sin mortal lays out the three conditions if you want them before you go.

Venial sins are a different matter: not required, but recommended. Canon 988 §2 — “It is recommended to the Christian faithful that they also confess venial sins.” The Catechism calls their confession “without being strictly necessary” and yet “strongly recommended by the Church,” because “the regular confession of our venial sins helps us form our conscience, fight against evil tendencies, let ourselves be healed by Christ and progress in the life of the Spirit” (1458).

One warning for a certain kind of conscientious man: if you find yourself repeating confessions, doubting whether you said everything, or leaving the box less at peace than when you went in, that is not devotion — it may be scrupulosity, and it has its own remedy. The rule there is to obey the confessor rather than the anxiety.

What the priest does: counsel, penance, absolution

Three things happen on his side of the screen, and knowing them in advance takes the fear out of all three.

Counsel. He may say a few words — sometimes a question, sometimes one sentence of advice that turns out to be the reason you came. Sometimes nothing at all. A short confession is not a failed one.

Penance. He gives you something to do. The Catechism says the penance “must take into account the penitent’s personal situation and must seek his spiritual good” and that it “can consist of prayer, an offering, works of mercy, service of neighbor, voluntary self-denial, sacrifices, and above all the patient acceptance of the cross we must bear” (1460). If you did not hear it, or truly cannot do it, say so and ask for another.

Absolution. He extends his hand and absolves you — “And I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Order of Penance, 2023 English translation). You answer “Amen.” Absolution is the hinge of the whole thing. What it effects, the Catechism describes as reconciliation with God that “is usually followed by peace and serenity of conscience with strong spiritual consolation” (1468).

The Act of Contrition

When the priest asks for your act of contrition, any honest words of sorrow will do — and if you have forgotten the prayer, tell him and he will lead you through it. But there is a reason to know one by heart: the words carry you when your own will not come. The traditional form:

“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.”The traditional Act of Contrition

Contrition is the first of the penitent’s own acts, and the Catechism defines it precisely: “sorrow of the soul and detestation for the sin committed, together with the resolution not to sin again” (1451). The whole prayer turns on its last clause — to amend my life. Without the resolution, the words are only words. Several approved forms exist, in English and in Latin; we set them all out, with their sources, on the Act of Contrition page.

After confession: do the penance, then give thanks

Do the penance first. Before the truck starts, before the phone comes out. If it is prayers, kneel in the church and pray them there — a penance carried out to the parking lot has a way of never happening.

Then understand why there is a penance at all. “Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused” (Catechism 1459). The guilt is gone; the damage is not, and some of the damage has a name and an address. The same paragraph is blunt about it: where a sin wronged somebody, “one must do what is possible in order to repair the harm (e.g., return stolen goods, restore the reputation of someone slandered, pay compensation for injuries). Simple justice requires as much.” If you confessed something you did to your wife, your child or a man at work, the penance the priest gave you is not the whole bill. Go make it right.

Then give thanks. The rite itself ends that way — “a prayer of thanksgiving and praise” (Catechism 1480) — and it is worth staying in the pew a few minutes to do it properly rather than leaving at a walk. Kneel. Say what you actually mean. Then get up and go home different.

For the man who leads a household: the most useful thing you can do with this sacrament is put it on the family calendar and go first. Set one Saturday a month. Drive your sons there and go in ahead of them. A boy who watches his father walk into the confessional learns what repentance costs and that it is survivable — which is a lesson few lectures deliver. That is the work of the priest of your home: not preaching the sacrament, but being seen to use it.

Behind the screen, or face to face

Both are the same sacrament and both are ordinary. The difference is which one must be on offer. Canon 964 §2 tells the bishops’ conference to set the norms for confessionals and “to take care, however, that there are always confessionals with a fixed grate between the penitent and the confessor in an open place so that the faithful who wish to can use them freely.” So a screen is meant to be there for anyone who wants one; face-to-face is an option a parish may add.

If anonymity is what gets you through the door, take it without embarrassment. Plenty of men confess better behind a grate, and the sacrament is not improved by eye contact. And if your own parish is where you cannot bring yourself to go, canon 991 leaves you free to confess to any legitimately approved confessor you choose — the parish two towns over counts.

What if you forget a sin?

Read canon 988 §1 closely: the obligation covers the grave sins “of which the person has knowledge after diligent examination of conscience.” Diligent, not exhaustive. An honest confession is a complete confession, and the Catechism says so in as many words: “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” (1456). If a grave sin comes back to you afterwards, do not panic and do not stay away from Communion in dread — name it in your next confession.

Deliberately holding one back is an entirely different act, and the same paragraph is severe about it: those who knowingly withhold a sin “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’” (1456). Forgetting is human. Hiding is a decision.

The seal: what the priest can never do with what you said

Men hesitate at the door because they imagine the priest carrying their confession around afterwards. He cannot, and the Church’s language on this is about as absolute as her language ever gets. Every priest who hears confessions is bound “under very severe penalties to keep absolute secrecy regarding the sins that his penitents have confessed to him. He can make no use of knowledge that confession gives him about penitents’ lives.” That secret, the Catechism says, “admits of no exceptions” (1467).

Canon law says it in a single line: “The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason” (canon 983 §1). And the seal is not only about speech: a confessor “is prohibited completely from using knowledge acquired from confession to the detriment of the penitent even when any danger of revelation is excluded” (canon 984 §1). He may not act on it, hint at it, or let it change how he treats you.

How often should you go to confession?

The floor is once a year. Canon 989: “After having reached the age of discretion, each member of the faithful is obliged to confess faithfully his or her grave sins at least once a year.” The Catechism repeats it at 1457.

But in practice something else sets the interval. “Anyone who is aware of having committed a mortal sin must not receive Holy Communion, even if he experiences deep contrition, without having first received sacramental absolution, unless he has a grave reason for receiving Communion and there is no possibility of going to confession” (Catechism 1457). A man who intends to receive Communion on Sunday and knows he has fallen gravely has already answered the question of when to go.

Above the minimum, the Church recommends rather than commands, and recommends warmly: regular confession of venial sins “helps us form our conscience, fight against evil tendencies, let ourselves be healed by Christ and progress in the life of the Spirit” (Catechism 1458). A monthly slot on the calendar is the simplest way to make that real, and it spares you the decade-long confession later.

A card to carry into the confessional

Print the guide with the button at the top, or copy these six lines onto an index card and take it in with you. Nobody will mind.

1. Say“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been [X] since my last confession.”
2. ConfessThe grave sins: what it was, roughly how many times.
3. Close“This is all I can remember. I am sorry for these and all my sins.”
4. ListenTake the counsel. Take the penance. Ask for another if you cannot do it.
5. SorrowThe Act of Contrition — or your own honest words.
6. AmenAnswer the absolution. Then go and do the penance.

Stuck at the door instead of in the box? Confession after years away is written for exactly that.