If the Catholic church was founded by God, why would He found a church that gives man power to forgive sin?

Question

I thought only God could forgive sins. I am a Baptist.

I should say I KNOW only God can forgive sins.

Answer 1

I did not know God founded the Catholic Church, where do you people get this stuff?

Answer 2

When I got out of the Catholic Church I also had to ask myself why they followed so many traditions of man rather than the Scripture it's self. There is only one head of the Church and it isn't the Pope. Why to they pray to Saints when the Bible clearly states all believers in Christ are saints. The term is even used in the Old Testament for believes in God. We are the ones set apart not some dead people. Only the Father is who answers prayer. We come to Him through Christ by the Holy Spirit, for forgiveness and petition, it's not by any man.

Answer 3

The Catholic Church was the first church. It was formed with the help of God, but is still a human institution, as all churches are. The Catholic church doesn't claim to forgive sin, but they teach that the priest "absolves" sin, or the priest is like a channel through which God's forgiveness flows.

Answer 4

a million. The Catholic Church neither condones nor publishes nor makes use of latest child pornography. in case you section speaking with regard to the Kansas priest who had new child pornography, that's one guy, no longer the full Church. and whether there have been a hundred adult males or one thousand adult males or ten thousand adult males, it nonetheless does no longer be the full Church. 2. The Catholic Church does not teach something it relatively is incompatible with Scripture. 3. Priestly celibacy is pronounced in a million Corinthians 7. 4. particular, Peter replaced into married, as are some Catholic clergymen. So? Paul wasn't married as are maximum different clergymen. massive whoop. Celibacy remains pronounced for clergymen in Scripture and the traditional state for Catholic clergymen interior the Roman ceremony. 5. Celibacy is a present certainly! And if a clergyman isn't married, then it fits your thought that celibacy ought to easily prepare once you're no longer married. 6. Many clergymen did opt to marry and have infants, yet they willingly and freely sacrificed that choose so as to serve Christ. The Lord honors them for that sacrifice. Why do no longer you?

Answer 5

Yes, Mr. Syneckle is on the right path with his answer.

Only God has the power to forgive sins, but when Jesus told Peter in the NT that "Whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in Heaven, and whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven", he was giving the Apostles the power to act on behalf of God, and when the practice of confession was created sometime between then and now in the Catholic Church, Catholics believe that God grants each priest the power to forgive people on His behalf, since they believe that the priesthood started through Jesus and then Peter.

Answer 6

Scripture urges us to confess our sins not only to God, but to one another. And there's a New Testament precedent for the confession of sins (the Apostles are told that they can forgive sins, or deny forgiveness for them). John 20:23.

Answer 7

The catholic church was not founded by God. How can God found a church that worships images when he Himself said not to? The only mediator between God and human is Jesus.

I am Pentecostal.

Meg Michaels....show me a scripture to prove that Jesus gave His apostles the authority to forgive sins?

Answer 8

The Catholic Church believes that "Only God forgives sin."

When a penitent person asks God for forgiveness, his (or her) sins are immediately forgiven.

Catholics also believe that when someone sins they not only hurt their relationship with God, they also injure the entire church, the body of Christ.

Jesus said, "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:19)

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." (Luke 20:22-23)

The Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation with a priest ordained in the name of Jesus Christ not only reconciles the sinner to God but with the entire church, including you and me.

With love in Christ.

Answer 9

First, the statement that "only God could forgive sins" is somewhat false. Scripture tells us that in John Chapter 20:19-23, when the resurrected Jesus appears to the apostles this is his interaction with them:

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with you."When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.(Jesus) said to them again, "Peace be with you. 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."

In the last command, Jesus bestows authority upon the apostles to forgive and retain sins, after giving them the Holy Spirit. This is the scriptural precedent for the sacrament of confession.

Now, Catholics do not believe that the ability to forgive sins comes from the holiness or godliness of a person, but from the apostolic authority which Jesus gave to the first apostles, which has been passed down from generation to generation.

The power to forgive and retain sins, comes from God alone. The person in this case is only the vessel in which God ministers the graces to his people.

Excerpts from the Council of Trent taken from:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11618c.htm

The Council of Trent (1551) declares:

As a means of regaining grace and justice, penance was at all times necessary for those who had defiled their souls with any mortal sin. . . . Before the coming of Christ, penance was not a sacrament, nor is it since His coming a sacrament for those who are not baptized. But the Lord then principally instituted the Sacrament of Penance, when, being raised from the dead, he breathed upon His disciples saying: 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained' (John 20:22-23). By which action so signal and words so clear the consent of all the Fathers has ever understood that the power of forgiving and retaining sins was communicated to the Apostles and to their lawful successors, for the reconciling of the faithful who have fallen after Baptism. (Sess. XIV, c. i)

Answer 10

Honey, if you follow catholic traditions like Christmas, Easter, and Sunday Sabbath, then you are not that much less catholic then them. None of those are biblical holidays. God never commanded anyone to follow those holidays. Roman Emperor Constantine and the Catholic church borrowed ideas from pagan rituals to create their own holy days.

"Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
"Come out of her, my people,
so that you will not share in her sins,
so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
for her sins are piled up to heaven,
and God has remembered her crimes."
- Revelation 18:4-5