Why do we need to confess to a priest and not to God directly?

Question

I girlfriend wants me to confess this week and I ask why do I have to confess to priest and not to God directly? She couldn't answer me why. So she going to confess today and ask the priest why. I will let you know what the priest said tomorrow.

Answer 1

You don't have to confess to a priest if you don't want to! You can confess to God through prayer. You do not need an inbetween for you and God.... Jesus took care of that.

Go to a Lutheran church... you can do private or public confession. Public confession is doing during divine service (like Mass) and we all confess together, with silence for anything you want to put before God in your heart, and then the pastor offers absolution from God.

Answer 2

Catholics DO confess directly to God. The priest is acting as God's "agent" -- His voice, etc. -- hears the confession, pronounces you absolved by the Blood of the Lamb (JESUS does the absolution, the priest just pronounces it), offers some counsel on avoiding sin in the future and assigns a penance to help you develop a mind and heart that are more like Christ's.

If you didn't have the priest there, you wouldn't have anybody to pronounce you absolved. You'd be guessing if you were or weren't. You wouldn't have anybody to hold you accountable, and you wouldn't have and advice or help in avoiding the same sin in the future. You'd just be going it alone.

The BIBLE says to confess our sins to one another (James 5:16). Anybody who isn't confessing to another person is not obeying the Bible.

Of course, it's not always easy to do, because you have to trust the other person to (a) not be horrified and reject you, (b) give you good advice and (c) not blab your sin around to everybody else. That's the nice thing about priests -- they've heard it all, so they won't be rejecting, they are trained to give good advice and they're bound by sacred vows to keep mum about whatever you say.

Answer 3

Are all of our sins—past, present, and future—forgiven once and for all when we become Christians? Not according to the Bible or the early Church Fathers. Scripture nowhere states that our future sins are forgiven; instead, it teaches us to pray, "And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matt. 6:12).

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).

Answer 4

You have a priest, a great HIGH PRIEST who name is just, and wonderful. He is Jesus, all chirstians go "Boldly" go befour the thrown of God and confess to him directly.

Answer 5

Either one works just fine for me. But if you want to follow the dictates of your religion, and get "official" penance, then follow the rules that they have set out.

Answer 6

So the priest can give us our penance which is usually ten Hail Mary's and ten Our Father's..