What are Protestant concerns with the sacrament of confession?

[Sheeniac]

I understand that, I was trying to explain a protestant viewpoint. Protestants would disagree on what a “Mortal Sin” is defined as, as well as the proper way to confess sins. If two groups have two totally different beliefs about something and then proceed to talk vaguely abou that thing… only misunderstandings can ensue.

I read about a convert trying to tie the concepts together: our venial sin is a Prot. “stumbling” and our mortal sin could be compared to “backsliding”.

It’s always good to talk with people in their language if you can.

Pax tecum, Juli

 

[AnneBOK]

the only men with the power to forgive sins is the apostles and those in thier succesion bishops and priests ] …Luke 20:21-23

Ummmm,according to my parish priest GOD forgives - priests absolve…

Anne

 

[Syele]

You really think so?

The next time your daughter disobeys you, try this out for punishment for her and you together:

Make her sit there a pray OUT LOUD for ONE WHOLE HOUR and you follow suit.

You will definitely have a different outlook on prayer as punishment.

Wanting to pray voluntarily is very much different then being made to pray especially if a minimum time is put on it.

An hour is not that long to pray, especially if you are truly very very sorry about what you did. I have wept before God in prayer for longer than that and barely noticed it go by, but then I was sincere and repentant.

No one has ever “Forced” me to pray. The whole idea seems rather silly to me. IF I don’t sincerely want to pray why would God want to hear from me? God loves a Cheerful giver. Praying only because someone made you is pointless. Praying because you sincerely Love God and are sad you disobeyed and never want to do it again and your heart is broken over what you did… that has a point! Someone can’t force you to be sorry for your sins, you are or you aren’t. If you are not then you may do what you are told and be sorry, but instead of being sorry for what you did you’ll just be sorry you are stuck with the punishment.

I will not ever force my daughter to pray aloud for an hour. I will teach her to love God and to understand what her sins cause (Seperation from a loving God and earthly Consequences). As a result of teaching her these things she prays in sincerity and without any prompting from her mother. Little kids won’t understand forced prayer, instead it will make them hate to pray.

The other day in Bible lesson I asked her to tell a place she should pray quietly instead of out loud, examples from the book were things like “when you are about to take a test at school”. She wrote “I will pray when I’m in Time-out so that I can tell God I’m sorry.” I have never suggested this to her, she just knew it was the right thing to do! Love for God prompts us to pray, force is unnecessary.

 

[Mommyof02green]

No one has ever “Forced” me to pray. The whole idea seems rather silly to me. IF I don’t sincerely want to pray why would God want to hear from me?

I’m just going to throw this out there…
Do you pray before you eat???
Do you have your child say prayers before eating???

The reason I ask is because as a Mom of a 4 year-old and a 5 year-old I have to tell my children to stop eating and “wait” for prayers. (Not all the time, but it does happen) I make my kids say prayers before eating. Granted it’s “not” punishment, but it is something they have to do before eating.

God loves a Cheerful giver. Praying only because someone made you is pointless.

So is it pointless for me to make my kids to say prayers before eating their meals???

 

[He_Man]

I’m Catholic. Here is a simple objection that you would need to address:

“I confess my sins directly to God in prayer, and He forgives me. There is no need to go to a priest when I can go directly to God.”

I heard Father Pavone speak the Catholic Family Expo in Baltimore a few months back, and turned that around and asked “why do we need a Priest (or minister) to baptize us, marry, us, r do anything else for us?”

Why is confession selectively pulled out, while marriage, baptism and the like are not? I have not heard a good answer to that from a Protestant, or Catholic…

 

[jmcrae]

So is it pointless for me to make my kids to say prayers before eating their meals???

Certainly not - although really what you are doing is reminding them to pray - we can’t really “make” anyone pray, but we are certainly bound by the laws of charity to remind those who are under our care to remember to say their prayers - as a parent, this is one of your most important tasks with your children.

 

[Syele]

Certainly not - although really what you are doing is reminding them to pray - we can’t really “make” anyone pray, but we are certainly bound by the laws of charity to remind those who are under our care to remember to say their prayers - as a parent, this is one of your most important tasks with your children.

Teaching them how and when to pray is different than forcing them to.

 

[Mommyof02green]

Teaching them how and when to pray is different than forcing them to.

That is how it is for penance after confession.
We are “taught” to pray after confession. We are “told” what prayers to say.

In my house we have a “set” prayer for meal times; a “set” prayer for when we wake up, and a “set” prayer for when we go to bed… So in truth my kids have been “taught” to pray in the morning, bedtime and meal times. They have been “told” what prayers to say.

Once I leave the confessional I have a choice to listen the priest and do the penance: pray the prayers he told me to or I couldn’t ignore it. Truthfully, there is no one there to make sure I do. (Other then God, Himself)

You see the Church has “taught” the faithful that after confession you need to pray, you need to talk to God. Similar to what I have taught my kids: remember I have taught them to pray before meals, bedtime, and when they wake up.

Further more, there is no one there to making you go to confession! So if you go, you are there because you have a sorrowful heart for your sins and you want to make it right with God.

Unless you are a kid…then you may be there because Mom and Dad made you. I make my kids go with me to Church. I make them go to confession with me, however I don’t make them go into the confessional. First off, they are too young. Second I don’t see making them, after all I can’t make them be sorry Although, when they are 7 it will be required that they do a confession before receiving their first communion. I’m sure though by that time, they would have something they are sorry about and would be “willing” to go. So it really won’t matter…would it???

Any way, for us adults we are there because we wanted to be there. Therefore, we are going to do what we need to do. Which means we are going to pray and do the penance afterwards (Or at least one would hope, because what was the point of going, if you aren’t willing)

Does that make it easy? NO. Sometimes it is easy. Sometimes it’s not… Just like with my kids, sometimes they have no problem waiting to say prayers before eating, but other times they just can’t wait.

 

[Syele]

Mommyof02green, I started off saying I value prayer with confession, I just objected to it being considered punishment or being “forced”.

I think that the prayer instead should be considered part of yur relationship with God and not some concequence for being bad.

If penance for you is not about being punished but about repairing your seperation from God, then I have no objection. I think prayer is WONDERFUL when you have sinned and are repentant! I just can’t see it as a good way to punish a person.

 

[jmcrae]

I think prayer is WONDERFUL when you have sinned and are repentant! I just can’t see it as a good way to punish a person.

Penance isn’t “punishment.” It’s “reparation” - that is, to repair our relationship with God (which got damaged when we sinned).

Even when penances were severe (seven years in sack cloth and ashes) they weren’t meant as “punishments” but as a means to increase in holiness and to set aside everything that hinders our relationship with God.

 

[Mommyof02green]

Mommyof02green, I started off saying I value prayer with confession, I just objected to it being considered punishment or being “forced”.

I think that the prayer instead should be considered part of yur relationship with God and not some concequence for being bad.

If penance for you is not about being punished but about repairing your seperation from God, then I have no objection. I think prayer is WONDERFUL when you have sinned and are repentant! I just can’t see it as a good way to punish a person.

That’s what the Catholic Church teach penance to be!

See the section from the CCC (Catechism of the Catholic Church) re: confession usccb.org/catechism/text/pt2sect2chpt2.htm#art4

Also from one of my favorite books:
Catholicism for Dummies page129:

Penance may be doing something nice for your enemies, visiting a nursing home, or hospital, donating time to a soup kitchen or clothing bank. It may involve a corporal or spiritual work of mercy. On the other hand, quite often, penance is a set of prayers.

Whatever the penance, it’s merely a token, because CATHOLICS believe that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is what made atonement for our sins. Your penance is for your benefit—to remind yourself that God comes first and you come last.

It truly really is about God and your relationship with Him!

**It is truly a “Spiritual ER”!!! **Not a courtroom!!!

 

[Mommyof02green]

Spiritual ER???
Catholicism for dummies page 129:

When you go to the doctor’s office for a visit, you must tell the physician what’s wrong before she can diagnose the problem and prescribe the remedy. Confession is like a spiritual checkup. The penitent, the person telling her sins, must tell the confessor, the priest hearing Confession, what her sins (symptoms) are, so the confessor can offer the proper advice and prescription. A confessor isn’t a spiritual attorney or lawyer, but a spiritual physician. He does judge an appropriate penance, but ONLY GOD judges whether the person is truly sorry for their sins. Someone can fake it and lie to the confessor and merely claim to be sorry (have contrition) for their sins, but they only fool the priest not God. Without real sorrow, the sacrament doesn’t work

Withholding info from the confessor is as dangerous as withholding info from the doctor. Sin is a disease to the soul, and confession is like the ER, the spiritual physician (your confessor) needs to hear your problems and give treatment (absolution). The prescription is your penance.

Just like all prescriptions and treatment offered by the Drs in the ER you have a choice to accept it or not. When you go to the Dr. office the Dr. may tell you to take these meds to get better. However, taking the meds depends on you. The doctor doesn’t make you do it! However you do it if you want to get better!

 

[Mommyof02green]

Syele-

Looking back at post #71, I think I was “unclear” about what the Catholic Church teaches re: penance. I just bold printed part of your statement, without giving a clear understanding. I was going to change the post, but it was to late.

So just wanted to take the moment to say that the Church teaches: Penance is NOT about being punished. It IS about repairing your separation from God.

And you are right, prayer is WONDERFUL when you have sinned and are repentant! However, I will be honest and say it isn’t always the easiest thing to do!

God Bless.

 

[LilyM]

Do you brush your teeth every day Syele? Do you do so because the idea of it thrills you, or rather just because you more generally know that it’s a good and right thing to do?

We’re not ‘forced’ to do a penance in the sense that we’re unwilling, any more than you would be ‘forced’ to apologise and make it up to your spouse or sibling when you’re sorry for having done them wrong. Everyone who goes to confession and says the suggested prayers afterwards does so because they’re completely willing and wanting to be reconciled with God.

Sometimes, just like with a wrong to another person, you genuinely don’t know how to make it up. You may even literally ask - ‘what can I do to make this up to you?’ The penance is the way Christ, and the Church (from whom we also cut ourselves off, and who we also offend, when we sin) via the priest, answers that question for us.

 

[Pug]

I heard Father Pavone speak the Catholic Family Expo in Baltimore a few months back, and turned that around and asked “why do we need a Priest (or minister) to baptize us, marry, us, r do anything else for us?”
Why is confession selectively pulled out, while marriage, baptism and the like are not? I have not heard a good answer to that from a Protestant, or Catholic…

I suppose the snarky answer is that neither baptism nor marriage requires a priest. Thus, they don’t have so much of a beef with those two.

But the real answer is, “I don’t know.” Perhaps it is the difference between witnessing something that is by nature a public sort of thing and messing with something that is by nature (for them) a private thing. Both baptism and marriage obviously relate to the community for a typical non-Catholic. Maybe they don’t see that with confession. That is just a vague guess.

Okay you British folk, did I use “snarky” correctly in a sentence? Or is my case hopeless?

 

[Syele]

Hi Syele,

I don’t think of it in that way. We Catholics love our prayer life as well. We love God above all and love our prayer time talking with Him. However, after confession, we are to do pennance.

So while saying the rosary or what ever the priest prescribes, we are to meditate on our sorrow for offending our dear Lord with our sins. There is no forgiveness without sorrow. We are also praying, that with God’s help, we may amend our lives and not sin again.

I hope this helps.

1. I did wrong
2. I confess I did wrong
3. I’m forgiven
4. I feel sorrow for what I did/
   Isn’t that backwards?

Sorrow for offending God should be meditated on BEFORE you repent and ask for forgiveness. AFTER you should be thanking God for His mercies.

 

[Sabda]

Syele,

You still don’t get it. Let me tell you about some of the penances I have had and maybe it will help. One of the confessors I normally go to often tells me that for my penance he wants me to thank God for forgiving me for my sins. This can take many different forms. I have been told to offer up the Mass as a thanksgiving for being forgiving by God. I have also been told to just say a prayer of thanksgiving to God for forgiving me.

When we go to confession we are to do an examination of conscience before we confess. We are to be truly sorry for our sins BEFORE we go to confession. We are then to confess are sins and receive absolution. We then do something to make up for what we have done. BTW, the priest does not always give a penance. I have had one time were I was not given a penance so it’s not a hard and fast rule that you have to receive penance.

 

[Syele]

1494 The confessor proposes the performance of certain acts of “satisfaction” or “penance” to be performed by the penitent in order to repair the harm caused by sin and to re-establish habits befitting a disciple of Christ.

Re-establishing habits is good, I just don’t understand why it is that you need a priest to order you to do it. If you are truly repentant you should desire to be back in the habit of loving God so intently that you do it without anyone having to tell you to.

As a protestant I have to disagree with the other part of that statement… do penance is not going to repair the harm done. even the repentant soul cannot do anything to repair the Harm other than to love God. The real punishment for sin is death. Jesus did that for us.

 

[Flopfoot]

Hello,

First let me say that I am not trying to start any arguments. I am just curious as to what issues most Protestants have with confession.

I ask because I want to write an article on confession for my website and I would like to know what questions that I need to try and answer.

If you are Catholic what questions do your Protestant friends ask you most about. If you are Protestant, what are your concerns or questions about the sacrament of confession.

Thank you ahead of time for help my website grow by answering this question.

I hope that I worded this correctly.

Admittedly, I have heard this objection more often from Catholics than Protestants, but still an important issue to address.

In an ironic reversal of the OSAS doctrines / concepts, people accuse Catholics of thinking that they are immune to the consequences of their sins, because they can just go to reconciliation and be forgiven. And hence that Catholics think they can sin as much as they like.

One thing to point out in response to this is Catholic belief in Purgatory - even though you may be spared from eternal damnation, you still have to pay for and be purified of your sins before you can get into heaven.

However, more importantly is a clarification of repentance and reconciliation. There are actually 5 steps to a valid reconciliation -

1. Examination of conscience (ie, figure out what you have done wrong)
2. Be sorry for your sins
3. Make a firm resolve to never again offend God in this way
4. Confess your sins to the priest
5. Carry out the penance that the priest gives you.

(gotta love the Baltimore Catechism)

Okay, so this means that it’s not a simple matter of you can sin as much as you like and still go to heaven. You need to have a real change of heart and honestly resolve to avoid sin to have a valid reconciliation - which means that most likely, you’re not going to be going and doing the same thing again the next day. You can’t plan repentance in advance of doing a sin because a heart turned toward God wouldn’t commit the sin in the first place. And when we do sin it makes it harder for us to turn back to God.

 

[Syele]

Do you brush your teeth every day Syele? Do you do so because the idea of it thrills you, or rather just because you more generally know that it’s a good and right thing to do?

Have you ever gone more than a day without brushing your teeth? Try it and the idea just may thrill you a bit more. Sometimes you have to lose something before you know how good it is. I missed brushing mine for more than a day once, you get an awful fuzzy film over your teeth and bad breath to boot. No one wants you to talk to them cause they don’t want to see or smell your mouth. I can sure tell you the idea of a good tooth brushing thrilled me by the time I got home from camping and got a new toothbrush and it felt REALLY good to get all that gunk off me!

Funny, Confession to God is like that too, At first you might have been unthinking about your sin, then it creates this fuzzy awful feeling because you realize you are seperated from God- The God you are used to being Close to and personal with. You life starts falling apart because you relied on God for everything before. Now you are seperated. Then you confess and repent and God forgives you and you feel clean again! You are close to your Creator again. Life starts running more smoothly. Am I thrilled about it! Yes!!!

I hope that you guys come off the way you do because it’s the internet and not because you have no passion for God, but I hear a bunch of things like : You do it because you know it’s right but not really because you like it. You have to have punishment of penance (Which BTW is often being thankful or praying). you meditate on your sorrow after you’ve already been forgiven. You are told how and when to pray.

Where is the Passion for God? Even when I attended Mass for so long, everything always seemed rote, habit. Do this, genuflect here, kneel there, Hold your arms like this but not like that, say the correct words in response to the correct statement. What happened to tearing your clothes and throwing yourself on your face before God and weeping because you wronged Him and you heart is BROKEN? What happened to realizing that God is merciful and forgiving towards you? I mean really realizing it to the point where if you be quiet and still the rocks would cry out? I don’t do those things to get riled up, but how can you not get excited about God’s Love and God’s Promises? How can you go through life doing things just because you generally know that it’s a good and right thing to do? I refuse to live gernerally. God wants ALL of my heart soul and Strength not for me to go about doing things only because I think they are generally right. I do them becasue I LOVE God and to not do them would grieve one I deeply care about.

So you are right, I don’t get it.