catholics?

Question

I am a plaine jane, christian,, i'm not attacking anyone here ok.
I just need to know why your religoin says I cannot talk to my GOD, without a father,(confession) does it not say in the bible that he is the (FATHER)? My GOD is a jelouse God, why would I call someone father? he's not my father.why do I have to go through a man? who is also sinner,, and he is a sinner. every person on earth is a sinner. Please i'm not picking a fight here,, i just want to know, and learn ok.

pretty tony is CREEPIN me out,,, he's with a pink bunny? anyone else notice?

Answer 1

i was catholic for 10 years .... no more!!
God brought my family out of that!

the pope thinks he has authority of God here on earth.
he has given priests the "authority" to forgive the parishner's sin when they confess.

as Christians know, only God can forgive sin.
Christians are not to follow the doctrine of men ....

"That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive." (eph.4:14)

Answer 2

Catholicism does not say you must go through a priest to confess. The priest is available should you wish to confess your sins out loud. The priest can help guide you through the process and offer words of wisdom. It helps some people to confess out loud and get a nod from a holy man that they have done a good job. A confession seems to hold more weight when you actually have to admit what you did to another human being.

As long as you ask forgiveness (aloud, mentally, in a church, in your back yard, whatever), you will be forgiven.

Answer 3

The idea is that we call our pastors Father out of the spiritual recognition that they have devoted their actual life's work to spreading God's word. I hardly regard a priest as the equivalent of God the Father! I consider our priests human sources of spiritual guidance -- but never equivalent to God, nor any more divine than the rest of us. We do not worship our priests, but respect them. It is very different from calling God our Father -- I do not think of it in the same way, and it *is* the intention which counts.

When we go to confession, the idea is not that the priest is forgiving you -- it is that he is speaking to you on God's behalf. Not with an additional divine power, but that the Holy Spirit is working through him -- in addition, the priest can give us direction in how to repent for our sins. If I confess to having a fight with my brother, the priest may suggest that for the next week I ought to try participating in a nonviolent activity that we both enjoy, to help bond.

Thank you for asking so politely! I am always glad to explain different views than one might be accustomed to.

Answer 4

First of all, you can pray to God. It's not as if the Catholic Church has a prohibition on prayer to God. But the idea of confession comes from a Biblical verse stating that we are to confess our sins to one another, and also from a Biblical passage in which Christ gave the power of the forgiveness of sins to His apostles, and said that whatever these people chose to forgive would be forgiven. Since the Catholic Church believes in the doctrine of apostolic succession, they believe that this power still exists today.

Answer 5

You are right. The Catholic church has got it all wrong. We should live in the word of God by reading the Bible and having a personnal relationship with God. No priest is required. That is why we have the Holy Spirit.

The Catholic church does many things that are not Biblical.

Answer 6

Jesus said something that fits sooooo well here: "But YOU, do not YOU be called Rabbi, for one is YOUR teacher, whereas all YOU are brothers. Moreover, do not call anyone YOUR father on earth, for one is YOUR Father, the heavenly One. Neither be called ‘leaders,’ for YOUR Leader is one, the Christ." (Matthew 23:8-10)

The use of titles such as Father by the Catholic church is yet another way they do not follow the Bible.

Answer 7

I am not a Catholic but a baptist, I just want to say because you are asking this question shows that you are growing CHRIST. Take this to the FATHER in prayer.

Answer 8

Shazam!!

Answer 9

The Catholic Church does not say that.


The Sacrament of Reconciliation is one of the seven sacraments Christ gave his church. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is also known as the Sacrament of Penance or Confession. This sacrament can set us free from our sins, and from the burden of guilt that comes along with our sins. Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation – confession – we are brought back into union with God. Our sins separate and damage our relationship with our Lord, and it is through this most powerful sacrament that our relationship with the Lord is repaired and strengthened. Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation we can walk more closely with the Lord once again, without the burden of our sins weighing us down and distancing our relationship with God.

Some ask why Catholics confess to a priest rather than just going straight to God. Some claim that confessing to a priest is not biblical. But that is not true.

We confess to a priest because that is the way Jesus instigated the sacrament. It is at his command that we confess to one another. When we sin against the Father our sins also affect our Christian family. Confessing sins to a priest is something that was a universal practice and never debated in the Early Church.


Jesus himself was able to heal not only the physically sick, but the spiritually sick as well. Christ had the power to forgive sins (see Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:5-12).

He passed on that power to forgive sins in his name to his Apostles.

Jesus entrusted his Church with the power of forgiving sins through this most wonderful sacrament. The priest is simply the one who acts in persona Christi (in the person of Christ) in the confessional, but it is our Lord who forgives our sins. The priest grants absolution (sets us free from our sins) using the power Jesus entrusted to his Church. It is through Christ, however, that our sins are forgiven.

St. Paul tells us, "And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us." (2 Corinthians 5: 18-20)


Does this mean that we shouldn’t speak and pray directly to God and express sorrow for our sins? Not at all! In fact for daily faults that is exactly what we should be doing. But for more serious offenses, for grave and mortal sins, we must repent and confess through the Sacrament of Reconciliation because that is what Christ commands us to do.



Confession





The practice of Confession arises from the example and command of Jesus, who showed that human nature could be used by God as an instrument of grace and forgiveness. He said "That you may know that the Son of Man has the power to forgive sin..." (Mt. 9:6; Mk 2:7-10; Lk 5:21-24). The Hebrew title He used was "ben Adam" meaning "Son of Adam." This was the Hebrew way of saying "a human being." Jesus always gloried in His Humanity, since through It He redeemed us. He communicated this authority to His Apostles on Easter night, "Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven, whose sins you shall retain they are retained" (Jn 20:19-23). In this way He gave the Apostles the power to give "Peace" (v.21), which is nothing less than the reconciliation of man with God.



The text even makes clear how Confession is to be conducted. Christ's representative, the priest, must decide whether to forgive or retain. Therefore, the penitent must confess each and every serious sin, that is anything which separates him from Christ. If the priest judges he is truly sorry, He must absolve since Christ's Passion merited forgiveness for every repentant sinner. Only if the person shows no willingness to give up sin does the priest retain, that is withhold absolution, as we "do not give what is holy to dogs" (Mt 7:6).


The means by which God forgives sins after baptism is confession: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Minor or venial sins can be confessed directly to God, but for grave or mortal sins, which crush the spiritual life out of the soul, God has instituted a different means for obtaining forgiveness—the sacrament known popularly as confession, penance, or reconciliation.

This sacrament is rooted in the mission God gave to Christ in his capacity as the Son of man on earth to go and forgive sins (cf. Matt. 9:6). Thus, the crowds who witnessed this new power "glorified God, who had given such authority to men" (Matt. 9:8; note the plural "men"). After his resurrection, Jesus passed on his mission to forgive sins to his ministers, telling them, "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you. . . . Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:21–23).

Since it is not possible to confess all of our many daily faults, we know that sacramental reconciliation is required only for grave or mortal sins—but it is required, or Christ would not have commanded it.

But the basics of the sacrament have always been there, as the following quotations reveal. Of special significance is their recognition that confession and absolution must be received by a sinner before receiving Holy Communion, for "[w]hoever . . . eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Cor. 11:27).
The Didache

"Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life. . . . On the Lord’s Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure" (Didache 4:14, 14:1 [A.D. 70]).

Answer 10

LET THE BIBLE THUMPING BEGIN!