[utahagen]

“In my experience, they are more likely to tell you that there is no sin...” Me, too, usually. However, I recall once going to confession about twenty years ago, when I was just out of school, and reading my list of sins through the grille. (I am a big list-maker.) The priest heard the rustling of paper and scolded me harshly, “You're not supposed to write [sins] down!” He was correct, I assume, yet my thought was, “At least I'm bloody here!” I'm now more spiritually and emotionally mature than I was then, and can see that the priest's faults — I now acknowledge he may not have had any faults that I really knew about — had nothing to do with my very real sins. I was (and am) a miserable sinner, and whether the priest be one, as well, is not my business.

[metmom]

The priest heard the rustling of paper and scolded me harshly, “You're not supposed to write [sins] down!”

Well, considering the emphasis Catholicism outs on confessing every little sin one commits, what would he think is wrong with covering all your bases?

I'D certainly forget something otherwise. Heck, I can't even remember all my groceries even when I DO have a list. And I don't believe that my eternal salvation is contingent on getting my shopping list correct.

*I* wouldn't want to take any chances with that. If I can't get my shopping done without a list, I'm not putting my eternal destiny at that kind of risk.