Topic: Why do Catholics confess their sins to a priest?

Source of this posting: Moderator response

Date originally posted: February 1, 2002

Moderator who originally posted this source: P.Leach

Question:  A really good friend of mine is a Protestant, and he doesn’t understand why we Catholics confess our sins to a priest; can you help me explain? 

Answer:

Well, a simplistic answer to your friend’s question is that we confess to a priest because it’s good for us! 

But of course, much more complete ways of explaining our belief exist. 

First, let’s try to clear up what the Catholic Church says about Confession.  As Catholics we only HAVE to go to Confession if we are in a state of mortal sin. 

For a sin to be ‘mortal’ three criteria have to be met.  (1) The sin in question has to be a serious offense God and neighbor.  All sin, by the way, has a communal dimension – that is to say, no sin is utterly ‘private’ because the community, made up of our neighbors, is always diminished by my sinful acts.  (2) I must know that the sin which I have committed is a serious offense against God and neighbor.  (3) The sin must have the full consent of my will.  When all three (not 2 out of 3) of these conditions are met, I am, very likely in a state of mortal sin.   

The phrase ‘mortal sin’ is based on the words of the Scripture in I John 5:16 which indicates that some sins are “deadly,” that is, “mortal.”  As Catholics we believe that a person who dies with a mortal sin on his or her conscience  which has not been confessed and absolved stands a very good chance of never experiencing the fullness of eternal life. 

So, Catholics have to go to Confession if they have committed mortal sins. 

But the Church strongly recommends that we go to Confession at least once sometime between Ash Wednesday and Trinity Sunday which is the week after Pentecost.  Fulfilling the Church’s recommendation about a minimum of one Confession and Holy Communion a year during this period is called “the Easter duty.” 

 Finally, the Church suggests, with very good reason, that we ought to make a regular practice of celebrating the Sacrament of Penance.  For some people that means once a month; for others it means seasonally – say, four times a year: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.  (I personally like this arrangement, but each Catholic needs to work out what “regular” means in the context of her or his life with a good Spiritual Director.)

Now that we’ve looked at when the Church says we need to go to Reconciliation, let’s try to think about WHY we confess our sins to a priest. 

(By the way, for our purposes here, we are going to use the words, “Confession,” “Penance,” and “Reconciliation” pretty much interchangeably though, technically, they each have specific and different-though-related meanings.) 

We believe that God ‘desperately’ wants us to experience the gift of divine forgiveness.  God wanted to give us that gift so ‘desperately’ that Jesus, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, gave up the glory of heaven (see Philippians 2:6—11) to bring us that gift of God’s forgiveness.  In other words, God was willing to go to the ultimate length in order that humankind might receive this gift of divine forgiveness and reconciliation. 

So, as Catholic Christians one of our most fundamental beliefs about God is that God wants us to be forgiven and reconciled to God, to ourselves, and to other human beings, especially to the community of believers. 

Another of our beliefs which is deeply imbedded in our faith is that in order to accomplish this reconciliation between God and the human race, God chose to become “one like us in all things but sin.” (see Hebrews 4:15) 

 Jesus Christ is, on the one hand, the incarnation, that is, the ‘en-flesh-ment’ of the Second Person of the Trinity, that is to say: Jesus Christ IS God. (see Hebrews 1:3a)   

And yet, on the other hand, we believe that Jesus Christ has a completely human nature.   He has a “full share” in our blood and flesh. (see Hebrews 2:14a)  The Scripture tells us that Jesus Christ “had to become like his brothers in every way” (Hebrews 2:17a) though without sin. 

While this belief, which is called the doctrine of the Incarnation, is profound and requires a lot of prayerful study, for our purposes, we can make the following simple assertion based on it:  God willingly chose to use a man, Jesus Christ, to bring reconciliation and forgiveness to the world. 

Now, to be sure, the man Jesus Christ is unique in all of history; no other man, no other human being can be put on a par with Him.

 That being said, we can still say that God is perfectly willing to use a man, a human being to bring the gifts of divine forgiveness and reconciliation.  God did this supremely in and through Jesus Christ.  So, when Catholics say that God continues to offer forgiveness through the life and work of a particular man who has been ordained to the priesthood, we are not asserting something that is fundamentally ‘contrary’ to the way we have seen God work in the past.  While the ultimate example of God using a man to bring reconciliation to the world is, of course, Jesus Christ, the Scriptures are filled with examples of God using individual human beings to be the agents of God’s reconciling power in the world. 

We also believe that God entrusted to the community of the Church this privilege and power to offer forgiveness through the ministry of particular men. 

 Again, we look to the Scripture for example and insight.  The locus classicus is Jesus breathing on the Apostles in the Upper Room after the Resurrection.  Here, in John 20:22—23 Jesus tells the disciples that if they forgive people’s sins, those sins are, in fact, forgiven them.   

And we know, again on the testimony of Scripture in Acts 1:15—26, that the office of Apostle was able to be handed-on.  With that office came the power Jesus had given the Apostles in the Upper Room, specifically the power to forgive sins.

 Catholics have believed from the beginning that through “Apostolic Succession” the authority of the Apostles is present in the Church in every age in the ministry of Bishops.  The Bishops, in turn, share with priests this power to forgive sins.

In short, we might say that the Sacrament of Reconciliation is one of the most important ‘evidences’ we have of just how much God loves us, of how much God wants us to know beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt that we are forgiven.

 One last comment about why we Catholics confess our sins to a priest:  as I said at the beginning – it’s good for us! 

 I mean that, in addition to the sacramental grace which comes to us and which is always good for us, Confession is good for us psychologically.

Being able to sit across from another human being, to admit the places where I have really messed-up my life, to ask for God’s forgiveness, to hear words that assure me of God’s love, and to know that another, living human person shares this sacred moment of grace with me – wow!  That can’t help but make a positive impression on me.  My psyche must experience a renewal just knowing that another human being, flawed and sinful like I am, has heard my worst secrets and has told me unequivocally that I am forgiven, accepted, reconciled, and loved by God!   It’s good for us!