Confession - to God directly

[JB_Brother_4446]

What an interesting turn of events today. My wife and I had a talk. She is respecting my decision to convert to Roman Catholicism. She even suggested that my son could even join me, though she isn’t sure if she’ll convert. Tomorrow, I head off to the local parish in my area to have a face-to-face talk with one of the priests, or church staff, is possible. I may need to book an appointment.

I’ll admit, I never in my entire life believed this day would come. Never. I thought I’d be a protestant to the day I die, and then some. I’m still in shock. Just taking it all in.

Praised be to God!

 

[Teabag]

Isn’t ‘Roman’ Catholicism the wrong wording? Just ‘Catholic’ should do?

 

[guanophore]

I am just going to have to go with what Jesus taught in the Lord's Prayer.  It is perfect because he is perfect.

He showed us how to pray, and asking forgiveness was part of that, along with forgiving others.

I just don’t see anything that convinces me that one should confess to a priest, rather than directly to God.

You are suffering a misconception, Markie. One does not confess to a priest “rather than directly to God”. One confesses directly to God. The priest is present in the person of Christ. The Church urges us to confess our sins immediately as we become aware of them, then go to Confession and receive absolution.

And the 1 John 1:9 verse also negates purgatory to me.  I have been told purgatory is a place or condition of purging, but if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to cleanse us of all.

Again the tw are not contradictory. The state of purging is one of cleansing, where the soul is separated from all that is not pure. Nothing unclean can enter heaven. When we leave this life, often we still have the consequences of our sins and our attachments to the flesh that need to be separated from us so that we can enter His presence.

Complicated Catholic theology keeps bumping in to simple Biblical truth in some places to me.

Markie, the Bible was made by Catholics. Catholics wrote the 27 books that comprise the New Testament, and bound those books together with the Septuagint to create what we know of today as the Bible. There is nothing in the Bible that “bumps” against Catholic teaching because the Teachings and the Writings all came from the same infallible Source.

 

[guanophore]

James 5:16 says to confess your sins to one another.  This does not imply a priest to me - but more to confess to those you have wronged.

Perhaps you need a little help with the context and the Greek, Markie. The passage instructs the believers to call for the “elders of the church”. In Greek, these are the presbyteroi, the word from which we derive “priest”.

  Seems in line with the teaching in Mathew 6:14 that if we forgive those that sin against us, our heavenly Father will forgive our sins, but if we don't forgive others, He will not forgive our sins.

I believe we should confess in the church, and outside of the church - to whom ever we have wronged, as much as is possible.

I hear you - I know that grabbing one verse alone can be misleading. That’s the thing that made me not OK with some protestant teaching - and I am working on that.

But I really can’t believe that one can not confess direct to God, when it is in the Lord’s prayer.

Right.

You are just getting hung up on the erroneous idea that the priest is there somehow “between” you and Christ, rather than being in the person of Christ.

I am good with both. If I was wrong to suppose either/or, and it is both/and - I would be happily educated today!

It seems like most of the teaching I was exposed to focused just on the confession to a priest.

This is because it is so easy for human beings to deceive ourselves. We have the capacity to cling to our attachments to sin/flesh and not even realize that we are doing it. A perfect confession means that all these attachments are broken. Since was are unaware sometimes of having them, it is difficult to make a perfect confession. When we participate in the sacrament, His grace provides for our weaknesses. Absolution is not dependent upon the perfection.