"Bless me Father, for I have sinned." Even folks not into Catholicism may recognize those words, due to all the movies and TV serials that showed confessional scenes. In case you don't recognize them, they are the first words spoken by penitent to priest when going to confession. Then, the confessor continues to speak, stating how long it's been since the last confession and providing a list of sins (and number of occurrences) committed in the interim.
Sins come in 2 flavors: venial and mortal. Mortal sins are nasty: murder, rape, adultery and such. If you die prior to confessing a mortal sin, you're going straight to hell. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Go. To. Hell!
Venial sins are less serious. If you die prior to confessing them, you have to spend a few decades in purgatory before going to heaven. No biggie, right? Purgatory may be cooler than hell but nobody knows. Purgatory may have an early release policy for good behavior but again, nobody knows.
The above is background only. I wanted to bring readers up to speed before getting into the meat of it, which is this: how do Catholics keep track of their sins? Do they carry logbooks and pencils at all times, entering tick marks every time they swear or lie or, God forbid, have an impure thought?
I will now confess how I went about it. Just prior to entering the confessional, I'd think up a list of sins (all venial of course) and number of occurrences. Realizing the priest most likely recognized my voice, I would be creative: delete an old sin, add a new one, vary the number of occurrences.
One aspect of confession always bothered me: murderers and criminals and other scumbags go straight to heaven if they confess just before they die. However, if I died with one itty-bitty lie that wasn't confessed - with nary a mortal sin on the score card - I'm going to cook in purgatory for God knows how long. That's a miscarriage of justice if ever there was one.
Anyway, I want to hear from others who were raised Catholic: did you do what I did when you went to confession, make up a plausible list of infractions?
FYI: I was raised Catholic, was an altar boy, went to church every morning when I was in grade school, studied bible history and catechism. But, it didn't stick. Religion isn't my thing.
Finally, one more confession: I grossly understated the number of times I had impure thoughts in my adolescent years. In my defense, the priest was quite old and I feared he'd have a stroke if I dropped the bomb: impure thoughts, 2,138 occurrences. Well, gees, it had been a whole week since my last confession! In retrospect, I could have passed it off as one really l-o-n-g thought, or even 7 not-that-long thoughts.
