Dear Pat,

Thanks for the question.

If you mean to say that you said to the priest in Confession,

"I had immoral thoughts and did some immoral acts.",

but didn't say what they were, you may need to clarify what you said a bit at your next Confession.

It is OK to say something like impure thoughts without going into all the detail about those thoughts, but you don't want to hide the nature of the thoughts all together.

It is not enough to say immoral thoughts, because that could range from anywhere from:

• doing something mean to somebody
• to planning a murder.
  
  There is a big difference in between those actions.

So, without using too much detail explain the categories of your sins.

For example,

"I had sexual thoughts and didn't dismiss them", or I did impure acts with myself, or masturbated", or whatever.

You don't need to describe the details (Jesus knows all that) but our Lord does want you to name the offense so that the priest (in Jesus' name) can explicitly forgive it and may give you good counsel on avoiding the sin in the future, not to mention a proper penance.

A good Confession is honest, not graphic so don't withhold information because of the embarrassment.

The priests have heard it all before.

Peace,

Bob Kirby