Under Roman theologyYou've mischaracterized Catholic theology quite a bit here. This is the equivalent of a Catholic saying: "Those Bible-only Christians, they think they can compel God, whether he likes it or not, to honor their proclamations and take them into heaven just by proclaiming that Jesus is Lord." Your characterization of Catholic theology is equally fallacious.
And no Catholic believes that any prelate, no matter what his authority, can save or damn a man by anything that prelate says or does.
But a pastor can certainly offer his opinion of the quality of someone's witness - and it sounds like this priest did.
And no Catholic believes that any prelate, no matter what his authority, can save or damn a man by anything that prelate says or does.
And what about all the times I've read here the claims that the Petrine succession compels God to honor what the Roman church binds or looses here on earth? Not by you but by many others.
Here's a
well-written example. Excerpt:
Finally, Jesus says, "Whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven." This is rabbinic terminology. A rabbi could bind, declaring an act forbidden or excommunicating a person for serious sin; or a rabbi could loose, declaring an act permissible or reconciling an excommunicated sinner to the community.
Are you somehow suggesting that excommunicating a Roman believer does not cut them off from heaven? That ignoring or avoiding the sacraments of the Roman church is unimportant? The Rome's sacraments are meaningless to your eternal fate?
You can't have it both ways. Pick one or the other. Either your priests, via your pope and the laying on of hands to authorize bishops who then authorize priests, have the power to bind or to loose (and them alone) or the power of the priest in confession and eucharist are a fraud. And if they have the powers generally claimed, then to withhold them does in fact curse a sinner into hell.