Is confessing to a priest necessary?

Question

Is confessing to a priest necessary?
Isn't confession to a priest an option? If you're sincerely sorry for your sins and confess them in your own heart, aren't you already forgiven?

Answer 1

Dude.......

The power to forgive sins was one Christ gave to his apostles (Luke 10:16; 2 Cor. 5:18-20). After he rose from the dead Christ said to the apostles, "'As the Father has sent me, so I send you.' And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained'" (John 20:22-23).
We can be truly sorry for our sins--that is essential for forgiveness--but we can't forgive our own sins. We can't absolve ourselves. That is a power reserved to God alone. Through Christ that power was conferred on his apostles and their successors, the bishops, and their helpers, the priests. Confession is not an option. It is the ordinary (normative) means through which sins are forgiven.


The Sacrament of Confession: Remedy for a sick soul
The greatest paradox of our life is that while we all instinctively strive for happiness, most of the time we are unhappy and dissatisfied even when no danger threatens us. Philosophy is helpless in satisfactorily clarifying the reason for this paradox. The Christian faith, however, explains that the reason for our dissatisfaction and dark feelings lies within ourselves. It results from our sinfulness — not only from our personal sins but also from our very nature that is marred by the primordial sin. Sinful corruption is the main source of our grief and suffering.


Sin is a spiritual sickness that grows and expands with time like cancerous cells. Left unchecked, sin gains in strength and enslaves its victim, and in doing so, it taints his mind, weakens his will towards good, permeates him with uneasiness and bitterness, arouses in him passionate feelings and evil thoughts and compels him to sin again and again.

We all are, to a greater or lesser degree, damaged by sin, although we often fail to recognize the full extent of our inner sickness. The main reason that the Lord Jesus Christ came to our world was to eradicate in us the roots of sin and return to us spiritual health and with it eternal bliss. However, because sin is so intimately interwoven with our mind and will, with our subconscious, it cannot be removed instantly or by external means. It is essential that we become actively involved with its extermination, but even our own efforts are not enough to accomplish total eradication of sin. Only the grace of Christ can give us complete spiritual recovery.

Indeed, this is the essence of the great advantage of the Christian faith. In contrast to other religions and philosophical teachings that are powerless in spiritual warfare, only the Christian faith has all the necessary resources and can strengthen us to overcome sin and achieve moral perfection.

The first turning point of spiritual healing is in the Sacrament of Baptism. Here the believer is cleansed from all sins and is spiritually reborn for righteous living. However, the predisposition towards sin, which is interwoven with his free will, is not completely eliminated. As time passes, an individual falls into sin due to carefree ways, inexperience, and different temptations. Supposedly eliminated, sin, similar to cancerous cells left after surgery, begins to propagate once again, gaining strength and striving to totally control the individual's will. The individual once again becomes spiritually sick and consequently unhappy and bitter.

In this difficult and dogged battle with sin, the Sacraments of Confession and Communion are powerful tools available to us. In the Sacrament of Confession the penitent Christian, in the presence of the spiritual confessor, opens to God his darkened and sick heart and allows the heavenly light to enter, cleanse and heal it. In Confession, as in Baptism, the great rebirthing power of the crucified Son of God is concealed. This is the reason that after this Sacrament, the truly penitent person feels cleansed and renewed, as a newly baptized infant. He obtains new strength to battle the evil within himself and to restart a righteous life.

I hope you got your answer

Answer 2

Not at all, unless the priest is a friend and you are just having a conversation with your friend and confessing because you gotsta get it off your chest. Other than that, big fat NO.

A priest's forgiveness is not God's forgiveness. No one has the authority to grant God's Absolution. This for God and God alone.

Now, if you've sinned against a priest, then okay, confess and apologize, but this is only for the relationship between you and the priest. It is not for God's Absolution, He does that any time, anywhere, with NO ONE in between.

Answer 3

Yes, but that's not enough for some people. Sometimes, it is necessary to tell someone what you have done if you really feel that bad about it, because later it will make you feel better to get it off your chest. Confessing to a priest is a private thing, and so that adds comfort to those who are afraid to tell friends or family.

Ironically, even though this is viewed as a highly religious thing to do, I was lead to believe that talking directly to God was more appropriate, because he is all knowing and stuff like that. This leads me to think that people who do this have a huge lack of faith in their religion, and just don't want to admit it.

Answer 4

No, confession to a priest is absolutly not necessary.
If you are a born again Christian then you have a relationship with Jesus Christ and the Lord God Almighty. You need to confess and repent of your sins directly to Him - no one else is necessary. It is good to have a close Christian friend who will hold you accountable for your actions but confession and repentance are between you and God. He knows your heart already and if you are being true in your repentance confession. Get into the word and build on your relationship with your Lord and Saviour. God Bless

Answer 5

I think if you confess to God and ask for forgiveness then a priest is not necessary. But I respect different religions.

Answer 6

If you are a Christian, your sins have been forgiven by Christs work on the cross, it is done. We confess our sins and repent in order to restore fellowship with God. When we sin, we break fellowship with God and confession and repentance repairs that breech. No you do not have to confess to a member of the Catholic clergy, why use a middle man when you can talk to the CEO?

Answer 7

I completely agree with your view, the priest just serves as kind of a symbol. Confessing to God through the priest is necessary for confirmation and other sacraments. The priest serves kind of as one of the entities, the reason many believe that only men should hold priesthood as God is seen oft. as man (the father) and Jesus was a man (the son).

Answer 8

If you know that you have sinned, and have asked God for forgiveness, what more do you need? You don't need a priest to get God's forgiveness. Talking to a priest/pastor about it is optional and just kind of serves as public announcement.

Answer 9

Yes, if you are Catholic. I have always been taught that as long as you confess through prayer and ask God to forgive you then everything is forgiven. It has to come from your heart thought, no matter what religion or how you chose to do it.

Answer 10

Why a priest in the first place...we sin against God and His Laws He is the one we should seek forgiveness from.

The Lords Prayer says: Matthew 6:12
v.12 "Forgive us our debts" - asking God to first forgive us
"As we also have forgiven our debtors" - forgiveness between mankind

Both have to be done with a sincer heart or it means nothing!!!

Answer 11

We can confess our sins directly to God. We do not need to go through a priest. The Bible tells us that if we confess our sins to Him he is faithful to forgive us.

:)