Emergency Confession At The Altar?

A reader writes:

If the groom lusts after the bride at the altar, must he confess before the exchange of vows?

No. Here’s why:

1) It is unlikely that lustful thoughts a conscientious Catholic groom might have at the altar would be mortally sinful. Once the couple actually gets to the altar, things proceed pretty quickly, and the groom is likely to be so distracted keeping up with things that any consent he might give to lustful thoughts would not amount to the kind of deliberate consent needed for a grave sin to turn into a mortal sin. He might have an attack of the scruples that makes him worry that it did, but the odds are that it didn’t.

2) It’s more likely that, in the middle of the wedding ceremony, a groom is likely to be imagining and looking forward to the wedding night. In that case, he’s not thinking about anything illicit. He’s thinking about and looking forward to something that will not only be licit but also expected–and immanently so. It’s not as if it’s months away from the marriage and he’s thinking about being married and having conjugal relations. In that case what he’s thinking about (marital relations) is not in itself sinful, BUT it is likely to put him in the proximate occasion of sin by getting him worked up when he has no morally licit way to act on what he’s imagining. When he’s actually at the altar then he has basically no opportunity to act in appropriately on his thoughts, and by the time he does have the opportunity to act on them after the ceremony, doing so will be licit. He’s thus not putting himself in the proximate occasion of sin if he’s thinking about the wedding night during the marriage ceremony.

3) Even if, by some fluke, he did manage to commit a mortal sin in his thoughts during the ceremony itself, the thing to do would not be to put the ceremony on hold for an emergency confession. The thing for him to do would be for him, to the best of his ability, to make an act of perfect contrition while the ceremony is going on and then exchange consent (and, if it’s a wedding Mass, receive Communion).

This is parallel to when a person is about to receive Communion and has a sudden sinful thought, which is almost certainly not mortally sinful and may be the product of a condition like OCD. Such thoughts, however, may be magnified by a sudden attack of scrupulosity and the person thinks it may have been a mortal sin. The older moralists recognize that in such situations the thing to do is to do one’s best to make an act of perfect contrition and receive Communion, confessing the thought afterwards if necessary.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

14 thoughts on “Emergency Confession At The Altar?”

  1. I think you ment to say “venial” instead of ‘grave’ in article 1 “any consent he might give to lustful thoughts would not amount to the kind of deliberate consent needed for a grave sin to turn into a mortal sin” Though it this case it would be a mortal sin turning into a venial sin via lack to full consent (if any sin at all).

  2. No, I meant “grave.” For a grave sin (i.e., a sin with grave matter) to be mortal one must not only have the grave matter but also adequte knowledge and deliberate consent.

  3. Jimmy,
    Certainly would agree that for a sin with ‘grave matter’ to be mortal sin one needs all three conditions (grave matter, full knowledge and full consent). But in usual usage the term “Grave sin” and “mortal sin” are the same thing. A grave matter without full consent or full knowledge is by nature according to the CCC a ‘venial’ sin. Hence my suggested reading.

  4. Perhaps I’m simply not being sufficiently serious-minded, but this concern seems like scrupulousity to me. It is all too easy to become carried away with overanalyzing the appropriateness of one’s thoughts.

  5. “BUT it is likely to put him in the proximate occasion of sin by getting him worked up when he has no morally licit way to act on what he’s imagining.”
    There is one…its called a “cold shower”, lol!

  6. Although not a member of Holy Mother Church at the time, when my wife and I were married, the only things on my mind were: not burping from the four beers I’d had just moments before, remembering my lines, standing up straight, will the DJ be set-up on time?, do I have enough money to cover my groomsmens’ drinking tab?, will the flight tomorrow morning be delayed?, will someone — me included — do something mindnumbingly stupid,….
    To be honest, my soon-to-be-wife was one of the last things on my mind.

  7. One’s wedding night activities are not merely licit and expected — they are a duty. Assuming one’s bride or groom has not agreed to absitence within marriage, one has a duty to pay the marriage debt.

  8. It’s true that one must pay the marriage debt, but many couples, for one reason or another, are not able to consummate their marriage on the wedding night, so I didn’t want to use the word “obligatory” and softened it to “expected.”

  9. There is an old book called Religious Customs in the Family by Fr. Francis Weiser. In it he speaks of an old devotion known as St. Joseph’s Night wherein the couple abstains from intercourse on their first night and instead spend it in prayer together.
    Since I first read that book, I have hoped to find a wife amenable to the practice of St. Joseph’s Night.

  10. Try as I might, I don’t recall having a single coherent thought from the playing of the wedding march to the carrying of the last luggage to the honeymoon suite, apart from:
    A. Remember your lines; and
    B. If the frigging photographer expects me to smile one more time…..; and
    C. These tuxedo shoes are killing me.
    And my wife had an almost unearthly (as opposed to remarkable) beauty that afternoon, too. Thus, I’m reasonably certain I would not have been interested in a St. Joseph’s Night, commendable though the custom is.

  11. I honestly can’t see any value in a St. Joseph’s night. If you have been chaste in your courtship and engagement, and prayerfully prepared for your marriage, and now you’ve actually been married, the consummation is part of the sacrament. Not dirty, not a duty, part of the sacrament. That is just beautiful.

Comments are closed.