God set up the system of confession and pennance so that we would not justify ourselves. There has to be an objective authority on mortal sins or we would start justifying our own behavior through our own imperfect conciences.
We would start justifying adultery because our wife didn’t give us sex. We would justify violence by saying things like, “He had it coming anyway” or “He deserved it.” We would do things like commit evil to prevent another evil and claim that we were actually doing good! A priest acting in the place of Christ, interpreting God’s law according to the Magesterium of the Church protects us from ourselves so that we don’t call evil good and wind up in Hell. This is a great mercy given to us from God.
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who change darkness into light, and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own sight, and prudent in their own esteem! (Isaiah 5:20-21)
Consider as well that the sacrament of Pennance is not a sacrament of forgiveness. Forgiveness is good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. If you go into confession looking for forgiveness, that’s exactly what you will get and nothing more. The sacrament of pennance is listed in the Catechism as a sacrament of healing. There is no sacrament of forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is the doctor of your soul and he wants to heal you of your sin so that you don’t repeat it, not just forgive you of it. We testify to this fact when we say the Angus Dei at every Mass
***"Lamb of God, you take away *the sins of the world, have mercy on us."
The priest says the same thing right before we recieve.
***"This is the Lamb of God, who takes away *the sins of the world."
The sacrament of pennance was instituted so that Christ could take away our sins and heal us of them so that we never do them again, not just forgive us of having committed them and watch us return week after week. This is the profound difference between simply being forgiven and having our sins totally taken away from us so that we are healed and never commit them again.
And confession to a priest really makes sense in light of the communion of saints and the us all being members of one Body of Christ. Catholicsim as seemed to have forgotten the shared nature of sin and the redemptive nature of suffering for all members of the Body of Christ. Since moral sins break the covenant with God, we need God to forgive us. Our breaking of the covenant causes great injury not only to ourselves but to the rest of the Body of Christ as well. Only God, through Jesus Christ, can heal this injury. The priest is the Alter Christus, the “Other Christ” and so we receive forgiveness and healing the injury done to us individually and to the Body of Christ when we meet the priest in confession. We also forget that the priest does pennance for our sins, makes temporal repayment for us on our behalf! The shared nature of sin and how it harms the entire Body of Christ is one of the reasons why confessing mortal sins directly to God, at a minimum, doesn’t make sense and when you think about it, is really a selfish notion.
-Tim-
