Explaining confession to Pentecostals

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bakhita

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An interesting discussion came up at work today between myself and:
  • a Catholic woman whose child is about to make his first reconciliation
  • a woman who grew up in Church of God of Anderson, Indiana but now doesn’t go to church, identifying herself as a “plain old Christian” who doesn’t need to go to Church
  • a woman who belongs to a non-denominational/Pentecostal fellowship.
    The Catholic woman mentioned that she had to explain the difference between mortal and venial sins to her young son.
    The Church of God of Anderon, Indiana woman never had heard of this. She said she was “saved” and she knew she was going to heaven and there was nothing she could do to ever save herself.
The Catholic woman tried to explain the difference between mortal and venial sins to her but got interrupted by the other woman saying “So you’re saying there are some sins that can’t be forgiven?!”
No, she explained but if you knowingly commit a sin like murder and die of it unrepetant, you’ll go to hell.

Church of God of Anderson, Indiana woman turned to non-demoninational Pentecostal woman and told her to “straighten” out us Catholics but Pentecostal woman said she was unsure how to respond to this and the conversation kind of petered out as other work topics came up.

If it comes up again, what would be a good way to handle this? I’m assuming my two non-Catholic coworkers believe “once saved, always saved” so in a way it’s almost like we don’t speak the same language. They don’t understand the need for sacramental confession, the seriousness of sin, etc. How do I talk to them about this in a way they’d understand?
 
You will probably get a better response to this in the Apologetics forum rather than the Non-Catholic Religions forum as it pertains to Catholic teaching and how to explain it.

A great place to start with collecting your thoughts on the subject is the Catholic Answers main site. I suggest you review the helpful explanations found here:

Salvation, including OSAS, Mortal Sin, etc

Sacraments, indcluding Confession
 
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