Confession of sins to a priest

[georgemiller]

I want to share the following with a class of sharp young adult Catholics. Please help, I need to know if it is free of error.

My personal understanding of the sacrament of reconciliation or confession of sins.

Many Christians believe that there is no need to confess personal sins to anyone except directly to God. Catholics on the other hand believe that the Will of God has revealed a specific way for Christians to confess their personal sins to God. That way is through one of the ministerial priests within the Church Jesus established. Why? Jesus teaches the Apostles in John 20:23, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." And again in Mt 16:19, Jesus teaches, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

So, why would God have us confess our personal sins through a priest? Doesn’t Jesus know all our sins especially when we repent? Why is it necessary to go through a priest? Why not just cry out, Jesus I am so sorry for all my sins, known and unknown, please forgive me?

For me, the story of Naaman as told in 2 Book of Kings 5:1-19 helps a lot in understanding the answer to that question. This story addresses how one individual initially refused to obey God’s Will but later submitted to it and received God’s divine healing. In brief, Naaman was a great Aramean military commander who became infected with leprosy. In seeking a cure he was told by God through the prophet Elisha:

"Go and wash seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will heal, and you will be clean. But Naaman went away angry, saying, “I thought that he would surely come out and stand there to invoke the LORD his God, and would move his hand over the spot and thus cure the leprosy. Are not the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be cleansed?” With this, he turned about in anger and left.”

Well, Naaman’s family and friends subsequently convinced him to reconsider and humble himself to the specific will and way of God. Eventually Naaman did this and submitted which required him to dunk himself seven times in the Jordan River. Once he had done this the result was a total and complete healing of Naaman’s leprosy.

I think the same lesson can be applied to the requirement from Jesus that we confess our sins through a ministerial priest. When doing so, the priest makes a judgment as to forgive on not forgive based on a number of factors shared with him. When the judgment of the priest is that forgiveness is appropriate God does the divine forgiving and healing of that soul. But again, why does God teach through Scripture and through His Church that confession of sins is to be through a priest? God knows our sins, He also knows if we are truly sorry, so why burden a sinner with the additional and often humble and unpleasant task of confessing personal personal sins to a priest?

I believe the answer is found in the experience of Naaman the commander. Naaman also said, why does God want me to dunk myself seven times in the Jordon river? He knew God could heal him without any such dunkings. Was God trying to make a fool of him? Not at all, what God wanted from Naaman was an outward and inward manifestation of faith and humility to His Will. When Naaman did summit to the Will of God and dunked himself seven times in the Jordon river the result was a complete healing of his leprosy.

The leprosy that Catholics seek healing from is the leprosy of our soul brought on by personal sins. Catholics believe Jesus has given His priests a special authority to determine if sins should be forgiven or not. The only requirement is for true repentance and the confessing of one’s sins to a priest. If one did not confess their sins how would the original Apostles or their successors ever be able to make a determination to forgive or retain one‘s sins?

Now just a personal note. Know with an absolute certainty that if I didn’t believe all this to be the way and Will of God, I like so many others would never share with any priest or anyone else for that matter my personal sins. I guess that is the macho characteristic of most, especially men. However, when it comes to the Will of God, I don’t think Jesus is much interested in how macho one might be. I would rather think Jesus is a lot more interested in how humble and loving one submits to His revealed Will.

Well, that’s why Catholics confess their sins to God through a priest. They do this knowing that God doesn’t need any filter through a priest to know our individual’s sins. They do this because that is how God has revealed He wants it to be done. And like Naaman, Catholics submit in a humble way to the way and Will of God in order to be healed, to be healed from the leprosy of sins on one’s soul.

In James 4:6, we are taught, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble”. Going to confession is always a humble act but also an act that brings with it, as it did for Naaman, divine healing!

Well, that’s how I understand the need to go to confession through a priest.

Any flaws in my thought processess on this subject?

 

[JerryZ]

GOD knows what is in our hearts, which is by the way were our ancestors though the centre of the intellect was located, (NOT IN THE BRAIN) therefore by extension GOD knows all our deeds and thought, as you correctly pointed out.

Therefore if GOD already “KNOWS” why does HE commands us to confess our sins to another human being?

could it be to help the other person? The one who “hears” our sins? I do not believe to be so, definitely it is us who can be helped by going to a fellow human and tell him our shortcomings, it requires a certain level of humility to do so.

Also in order for us to hear a positive response “I absolve you” from GOD HE would have to speak directly to us as in a “Theophany”.
However Jesus DID NOT set it up that way. He said to the 11, “Whomever sins you forgive are forgiven, whomever sins you retain are retained”.

How are the Apostles and their disciples supposed to forgive or retain sin if they do not “hear” them first?

It would make no sense. Nope Jesus set it up this way.

And believe me when a Priest is hearing your confession, sometimes weird things happen and you find out later that it was NOT the Priest that was talking but rather the Holy Spirit spoke through the Priest to let you know important events that can affect your eternal life.

Read the stories of the confessions to St. Padre Pio of Montalcina. They are illuminating.

…

 

[jaimeleglise]

georgemiller, I like your explanation very much. God bless you.

 

[Church_Militant]

Hi George,
These 2 blog articles of mine may also help.
Catholic Confession
Scriptures About Penance

 

[KnightOfSPUD]

Yes, God knows everything. He even knew what you are going to do before you even think about it.

I agree with what our Brothers and Sisters in the Faith that we could just confess to God all our sins personally. But this also has a flaw (I will discuss more about this later).

We, Catholics, believe that when we sin, we sin against God and we sin against the community:

Catechism for Filipino Catholics 1776 - The second great emphasis is to view “confession” as a communitarian and ecclesial action. In contrast to the inadequate individualistic notion of penance which often characterized the “routine confessions” in the past, we now recognize that the whole Christian community is involved in forgiveness and reconciliation. For like each of her members, the Church herself needs to be both forgiven and forgiving, reconciled and reconciling. Thus, the Christian community in every Eucharistic celebration prays as Christ the Lord taught his disciples: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” (Mt 6:12).

The priest represents both Christ and the Community, the two parties offended by sin:

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1552 The ministerial priesthood has the task not only of representing Christ - Head of the Church - before the assembly of the faithful, but also of acting in the name of the whole Church when presenting to God the prayer of the Church, and above all when offering the Eucharistic sacrifice.

1552 The ministerial priesthood has the task not only of representing Christ - Head of the Church - before the assembly of the faithful, but also of acting in the name of the whole Church when presenting to God the prayer of the Church, and above all when offering the Eucharistic sacrifice.
Sacrosanctum Concilium 33, Lumen Gentium 10

Now back to the flaw I mentioned earlier, confessing sins personally to God is fine but there is still the need to reconcile with the community. It’s a bit selfish to think that when you confess to God personally, you are forgiven. That also leads to another sin we call the Presumption of God’s Mercy

What is ‘Presumption of God’s mercy’?

This is unfortunately what some of our Siblings in the Faith are practicing basing it on this:

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; 1 Peter 3:18

Some of them think that “It’s OK if we will sin because Christ already died for us” (referencing the quote above)

But we still ultimately need to reconcile with the people we offended, both God an Church.

If any theologian reading this would try to correct me and at least grant me a nihil obstat