Direct confession to God?

Question

Catholics do you believe you can directly confess your sins to God? If you say yes for venial and no for mortal can you give me scripture to back it up. And yes I am one of those unreasonable people who accept only the Bible and not tradition.

By directly to God I mean praying to God. No priest involved.

Marysia - serious question. Would you mind showing me where in scripture it says we have to confess our sins out loud. I am not familiar with that. As to a priest. I figure my sins are none of his business. They are between me and God.

Born-Again Catholic - I wasn't necessarily trying to get at the differences between the sins. I have just seen catholics say they can confess venial sins directly to God. But mortal sins have to be confessed to a priest. I was just wondering how true this is.

MaH - I prefer to get the answers here in the people who follow a specific denominations words. Also accepting the Bible does not mean I accept RCC tradition. Too long to explain here though.

Answer 1

Certainly we can. There are many circumstances when sacramental confession isn't readily available, for instance, and yet that immediate contrition we feel upon knowingly committing sin evokes a strong desire to go to God with it in prayer. And so many of us do, and should. (I have.) But there's also no reason not to seek sacramental reconciliation as the norm; that would be like turning down a gift that Christ gave to the Church.

The verses from Scripture most commonly referenced to back up the difference between mortal and venial sin are 1 John 5:16-17 and Luke 12:47-48.

Answer 2

no matter when i confess - either in the openess of the woods or ocean or the private confines of a confessional with a priest listening -- i am always confessing my sins to my Lord & my God. does not Scriptures tell us we have to confess out loud?! are we not to work on and make ammends for our sins? are you so perfect that when you sin, you know exactly how to rectify the situation with the person and within yourself?!

I am not so perfect as you to think i have all the answers. I thank God for the wonderful priests he has shown into my life to help me in my failings. the offer support, scriptures and even just a shoulder to cry upon - knowing my Christian beliefs & hopes & being able to maintain privacy. I thank God for them.

i chuckle as often people say i wouldn't want to have to tell someone.... amazing that for them telling God is easier then telling a live person.... makes me wonder....

Answer 3

i've got self belief so. "If I regard iniquity, in my heart... the Lord won't hear me" Psalm sixty six:18 It basically ability which you may no longer have any superb unconfessed sin or difficulty you're conserving onto at an identical time as attempting to ask God for his advantages. you may commence off your prayer by employing confessing something you have finished in word or deed that would desire to have been displeasing to Him. that's what I do. Have a large day :)

Answer 4

When you confess you are confessing your sins to God. The Word is clear that if confess and repent that we will be forgiven. What the Catholics read is James 5:16 "Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. the effective, fervent pray of a righteous man avails much."

This is when you have sin against someone we are to confess our trespass to the person we have trespassed against. This is what Jesus taught when He said "Therefore if you bring your gift to the alter, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the alter and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift." (Matthew 5 23-34")

The only thing that removes our sin is the Blood of Christ. John 1:29 says "The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.""

I believe that King David said it best in Psalm 32:5 " I acknowledge my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord." And You forgave the iniquity of my sin""

Answer 5

There are no dam venial or mortal sins, it's made up by the RCC.

1 John 1:9 is the answer.

No wonder catholics are all screwed up.

Answer 6

If you want to "know how true this is" instead of asking on a relatively untutored and hostile public forum, take a minute and look at one of the online editions of the Catechism.

http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/

You will find the answers to your question there.

And you do accept Tradition, if you accept the Bible.

Answer 7

What's even stranger about this practice with Catholics is that the priest then tells you to go out and say x amount of Our Father's and x amount of Hail Mary's. Exactly the opposite of how Jesus taught us to pray. We are not to say mindless repetitive prayer. And do they not realize that the "Our Father" as they call it, is not suppose to be an actually prayer in those words, but a sample of what prayer should look like?

God bless.

Answer 8

Yes, there are many Biblical references to the sacrament of confession. Christ's first act on that first Easter Sunday was to tell His apostles that He wanted them to forgive men's sins and to give them the power and authority to do so in His Name (John 20:19-23). If we are truly His followers, we must do exactly what He tells us to do. He makes the rules, we simply obey.

Here are some more Biblical references.
Numbers 5,6f; Matthew 3,6; Acts 19,18; James 5,16; obligation of confession is gathered from the judiciary power of binding and loosing, forgiving and retaining sins, given to the pastors of Christ’s Church > Matthew 18,18; John 20,22f

Answer 9

if Direct confession to God
Take communion direct from God !!
Jesus give the priest to do that.
John 20:22-23
2And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:

23Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

Answer 10

One of the reasons why I left the Catholic religion was because of their dogma about confessing sins to God via the clergy. I always believed that one can talk/confess to God directly, without any middleman involved.