Your deduction is neither accurate or correct. I was taught that it was "Bless me", I know the vast majority use "Forgive me" though. Just because its not correct in your eyes doesnt mean its not correct in someone elses. I appreciate Errigal for posting both versions for me though. I havent decided on which to use because I havent decided if I want origional or personal.

Actually, it’s both. Logically speaking, if you say “bless me, for I have XYZ”, you’re asking to be blessed because you’ve done XYZ; in this case sinned.

Whether or not that version is used, and whether or not it’s correct in some denominations or to some people, doesn’t change the fact that it is, logically, an odd word to use in this context, and it does sound like what miseféin stated.

This is why meaning in language can oftentimes be equal to more than the sum of its constituents. The analytical, logical meaning of the phrase is irrelevant, since the phrase has a different, and well-established meaning as a unit. It’s similar to “I could care less”, which is both illogical and very odd as an expression (when seen analytically), but still very common and semantically perfectly valid.

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

I've often wondered where I could care less comes from i.e. how did it come into being as a phrase. It's an American thing isn't it? We have always said I couldn't care less which should be the exact opposite in meaning.

Bless me Father... is what I was taught for confession too. I don't really see how this is illogical at all. You are asking for God's blessing/grace so that you will be a better person, but clearly not as a reward for wrongdoing. It's easy to pick apart phrases like this. It reminds me of a friend who thought she was very clever in stating that schoolteachers should not be named thus as they do not teach schools! (She meant the building, so let's not get into the discussion about what exactly the word school entails!)

Nobody really knows where it comes from, or why someone at some point thought the negation should be left out … but it’s clearly there and fairly entrenched in the vernacular.

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

We'd say "I couldn't care less", too. As Scooby says, "I could care less" belongs to a different language that is also sometimes called "English", but more appropriately called "American".

I think I may have to delve a decade further back than Bríd for memories of my last confession but "Bless me father for I have sinned" rings a bell. I would parse it in the same way as the "bless you" that is used when someone sneezes. The implication would be that evil does not take root as easily in something that has been consecrated. Or at least I can see it working that way ...

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

Actually, it’s both. Logically speaking, if you say “bless me, for I have XYZ”, you’re asking to be blessed because you’ve done XYZ; in this case sinned.

I wasnt referring to the phrase itself, I was referring to my situation. Not asking for a blessing for sinning. I can see how one can come to that conclusion but lets not make accusations without knowing the person/situation is what I was getting at. And this request has taken a turn that I wasnt intending for it to do

I don’t think anyone was accusing anyone of anything—it was just an observation that, come to think of it, ‘bless’ is an odd word to use in the situation.

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Not a native speaker.

Always wait for at least three people to agree on a translation, especially if it’s for something permanent.

My translations are usually GU (Ulster Irish), unless CO (Standard Orthography) is requested.

Yes, that happens a lot on forums.

So it appears from searching around that "Bless me, father, for I have sinned" has been traditional in English for thousands of years and lately there have been moves to change it to "Forgive me, father, for I have sinned". Or something like that. There are discussions about it on Catholic forums, etc.

Whatever the case in English, I think the traditional phrasing in modern Irish has always been:

Maith dom, a Athair, mar gur pheacaigh mé. Literally, "Forgive me, father, for I have sinned".

But you would be free to change the maith dom to the more literal beannaigh mé, as Errigal suggested.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).

I suspect that "I could care less" resulted from people mishearing "I couldn't care less" as it may be pronounced in some American accents. In the South, among whites and blacks, it can come out as "Ah coon[t] cay-er less" [with the "t" often hard to hear], and the "coont" may have been misheard by non-Southern whites as "could". White American teenagers often mimic black speech, because it's seen as trendy (I was going to say "cool", but that would really date me), so they may have picked up what they thought was "I could care less".

Changes in languages often originate in adolescent speech. Most of them die out after a short life, but some of them "take" and become part of "normal" speech (or pronunciation).

A more recent example is the ludicrous "hella" (which I think is starting to die out, finally!), which resulted from white teenagers hearing how Southerners (black and white) might pronounce "hell of a". The result: "That's a hell of a good idea" can come out "[That a/Thassa] hella good ah-dea[h/r]" in the South, or among blacks elsewhere. I doubt many of the current teenage crop have any idea where "hella" came from, since they then started using it in all sorts of odd sounding ways. Here in SF, "hella" seems to have replaced the word "very", especially among immigrant children who pick up [pseudo-]black speech in our awful public schools, resulting in expressions such as "I was hella glad".

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

My comment wasn't meant as any kind of accusation, and I'm sorry if it sounded like that. My remarks were addressed purely at the phrase itself, and although I was taking it literally, Brendan's contribution makes a lot of sense: