Have you ever lied in confession at church?

Question

Have you ever lied because you did not want the preist to know what you had really done or lied for some other reason, or have you lied to a man of the cloth

just asking out of curiosity

Answer 1

I've never been in a church

Answer 2

I think I've probably lied to a priest once or twice in my life, when I was younger -- but never during confession.

In the Catholic Church today, the problem is not Catholics lying to priests during confession. I doubt that has ever been a problem.

The problem is that very few Catholics even go to confession at all these days.

When I was a kid (early 70s) confession was on Saturday afternoons, and it seemed that there were always lots of people there.

Nowadays, it's still on Saturday afternoons, but I'm often the only one there -- and there's never more than 3 or 4, max.

So, I don't worry about people lying in confession. I worry about people not going to confession. It's pretty worrying when everybody receives Communion at Mass, but there's hardly ever anybody at confession.

It tells me that a lot of us Catholics don't take our faith that seriously anymore.

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Answer 3

When young we were sent to confession every Saturday night.
I had the same three sins forever.... none of them very serios but thing is had to say something. Am sure I did not commit the same three all the time....in fact as a child why asume we have a great wad of sins each week and send us .......notice it was us childdren sent...the adults did not come. But we did buy a bag of chips on the way home.
So yes suppose you could say I lied.

Answer 4

Yes, I went to catholic school, we had confession every Wednesday. Being young we didn't really have many sins, so we made things up. Only little lies like saying shut up to a friend, or being naughty to the teachers. I wouldn't put my money in the candle box, but I'd light a candle anyway. My grandmother a devout catholic, who prayed all day would spend ages in the confessional booth. It always baffled me why.

Answer 5

Yes.

And, now that I'm an ordained minister myself, I know just how insidiously silly it is to be dishonest in confession.

The funniest thing about it is that when I didn't quite own up to being anywhere near as.. well.. girl-crazy as I was.. that my Priests and even my Bishop all got a completely incorrect assessment about what nowadays would be called my 'sexual orientation', and they started gearing up some rather well-prepared discussions about things to look out for, for a guy who might be more attracted to guys than to girls, to help me keep on the straight and narrow...

Including, I might add.. the advice that I should INCREASE my varying activities with my girlfriends... which, of course, came pretty darn close to getting me into a lot more hot water than I was trying to achieve.

Nowadays, whenever I feel that anybody is even BEGINNING to hold back on me, I remind them that my own memory is so utterly poor that chances weren't all that good that I would EVER get a chance to repeat anything they told me to anybody else, before I forgot it.. and I remind them that God Himself choses what to tell us and what to omit, so that if they would rather OMIT anything, they would only be just that much closer to being Godlike themselves.

Answer 6

I've never been to church but when my mum was a young girl she lied to the priest at confession. She had nothing to confess but thought he would think she was lying. She confessed to stealing biscuits from her mum's biscuit tin - even though it was a complete lie!

Answer 7

yes unfortunately. I have done some fairly bad things that I could never say to another human being. I know my higher power is around me all the time and already knows what i have done. These days i set aside a little time for my higher power and have a quiet chat with him.

Answer 8

If I wanted to tell someone a lie I would not care who they were. In any case as I understand it it is only the roman catholic church that indulges in this strange formalised ritual of "confession" and as an organisation it is in, in my opinion morally, sexually, spiritually and financially corrupt so it does not matter if you lie or not.

Answer 9

My sins are between me and God. I have no need to confess to a man other than to say yes I have sinned. I don't need to be any more specific than that. I know what I've done and so does God.

Answer 10

No, but not because of the priest, they are fallible men, they lie, they do wrong etc, if you believe that you need Gods Forgiveness, then God will know you are lying, know what you have done etc. if you are truly sorry for something, then, whether you explain it to a priest or not, God will forgive you.

Answer 11

I used to make up stuff when I stopped being repressed by the church-just to freak 'em out a bit.So-yeah-I lied about all that scotch tape that one weekend....