Everyone must, of course, confess to God on heir own as well There's no substitute for that. But5Confession to a priest also helps a sinner like me to objective about what they've done, but requiring me to say it out loud: to hear myself say it in an objective way. It is a srtong antitdote aainst our tendency to let ourselves too easily off the hook, to deceive ourselves (and there are 10,000 different ways for our crooked little hearts to do that.)
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 hadgiven 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).
That indisputably involves confession to a person who can "hear" your sins, otherwise this verse would be meaningless.
Just was wondering what this absolution of a priest meant ...
The absolute giant leap that is made by the Roman Catholic Church is that THEY have the authority to do what is commanded in Matthew. They are co-opting the power of Christ’s blood to hold men hostage. It may surprise some Roman Catholics to learn that Christ’s words about “never knowing you” were not exclusively directed to those who don’t surrender to the Roman bishop.