Should I go to a priest for confession?

April 14, 2024 

Both in the first reading and today’s Gospel we have a connection between “repentance” and the “forgiveness of sins”.  And for most Catholics, this simply means that if one goes for confession, expresses contrition for one’s sins and then carries out the ‘penance’ the priest prescribes, then their sins are forgiven. There is also the understanding among Catholics that indulgences that are still available in the Catholic Church (though not in the blatant way they were offered during the time of the Protestant Reformation) was/is another way to get one’s sins and the punishment due to sin, to be absolved.

There is a story that when Luther (16th century) started to become uncomfortable with the Roman Catholic Church’s push for indulgences as a way to wipe away the effects of sin, he asked himself whether John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ call to repentance was satisfied by the sinner confessing to a priest,  carrying out the penance prescribed or acts of self-mortification, or through the use of indulgences.  And Luther could not accept that this was all that repentance demanded. Consequently, he searched for the original Greek text from which the Latin translation of his copy of the Bible was derived, and he found that the original word for repentance was ‘metanoia’ - a word that means a transformation of the heart.  Unfortunately, it would seem that today,  the way the Sacrament of Confession or Reconciliation is understood by most Catholics, there is little stress on this kind of a transformation.

Having said that, it is clear that both John the Baptist and Jesus supported the ritual of confessing one’s sins and the baptism that followed, as together symbolising this metanoia. And though Jesus does claim that he has been authorised to forgive sins (Luke 5:24-25), it is clear to both of them that it is only God who can forgive sins. And so the question that is today asked by many is this: If ultimately it is God who forgives sins, why do I NEED to go to a priest for confession?

To understand how we arrived at the present practice of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, it will be helpful to run quickly through the multiple stages that the ritual went through from a public ritual to the private one before a priest that is common today.

The Gospel of John recounts that at one of Jesus’ apparitions to the disciples after his resurrection, he tells them:  Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20: 23) This power to forgive, in the early church was taken to mean that the followers of Christ had the right to forgive those amongst them who repented. And so sins were confessed publicly to the community, as sin was always seen to be have  social effects - as a violation of the command to Love one’s neighbour - and therefore asking pardon of all those who were hurt, (i.e. the community), was seen as appropriate. So in the Apostle James’ letter to the Christian community he writes: .”Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, annointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you  may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. (James 5: 13-16)  Clearly here the confession of sins was to the community, and it is the prayer of faith of that community that heals one from sin and sickness.

 

Pope Innocent 1 clarified this further in his letter to Decentius, Bishop of Gubbio in 421 AD: “This (passage from James) must undoubtedly be accepted and understood as referring to the oil of Chrism, prepared by the bishop, which can be used for annointing not only by priests but also by all Christians, whenever they themselves, or their people, are in need of it”.  

 

This letter also reflects another common practice in the early centuries where confession was postponed till the time of death, presumably because it did not make sense to the early Christian community that one could just repeatedly keep sinning and keep going for confession.  

 

A few decades later Pope Leo 1  (452), however, insisted on the need for priests, as those holding authority in the Church, to be also present in order to offer the forgiveness of sins.  Gradually too, the practice of public confession was discontinued as the Christian community became bigger and it was seen as extremely embarrassing to public figures, and even to those whose public confession of sins (e.g. adultery, raping, stealing, etc.) might have undesirable effects on the victim or ‘partner’ in sin.  And the practice of just one ‘last’ confession was also gradually replaced by a more frequent use of Confession, without waiting for death, since death could come at any time.

 

So, until the early 5th century, priests did not have sole right over the ritual of confession or the Last Sacrament. However, over the ensuing centuries, as the Church became more and more institutionalised, the distinction between priests and lay people was more and more entrenched, particularly by the Gregorian reformers who did not want lay people to have power over the Church officials and especially the Pope. For instance, at the time , because of the investiture system in place  the Pope could not appoint a bishop without the permission of the lay ruler. The Gregorian reformers began to push for a clear demarcation of powers  between the clergy and the laity.  This was pushed through the various Lateran Councils (10th to 13th century) and in the fourth of these Councils (1215) it was declared that everyone must confess privately at least once a year to a priest, and that priests were bound by the seal of confession.

 

In the 15th century, James’ permission to all Christians to offer the final annointing to a person at the time of death was also taken away from the laity and entrusted only to priests (General Council of Florence, 1439). And so Jesus’ mandate, allowing his disciples to forgive sins, was claimed to have been given only to the apostles and therefore in turn to priests who were seen as representatives of those apostles. What is quietly forgotten is that that concerned passage of John has no reference to the ‘twelve’ (the normal way the apostles were referred to) but only to disciples who were hiding from fear of the Jews. In  fact another forgotten fact is that, in addition to many other disciples, the recipients of that mandate/blessing  presumably included the women who were at the tomb, since in the entire story of the Resurrection the women are an integral part of the story and are mentioned even just before this very passage (i.e. in John 20:18). One would have to really stretch one’s incredulity to believe that when the disciples gathered in that room with the doors locked, out of fear of the Jews, they actually told the women to go out, and only safeguarded themselves.

 

Finally, in the 16th century the Council of Trent declared that Confession was a separate Sacrament in itself.   Later in more modern times it began to be known as the Sacrament of Reconciliation, thus focusing on the entire process, and the Sacrament of Extreme Unction began to be known as the Sacrament of the Sick, as it was intended in James' letter.

 

And that is how the Sacrament of Reconciliation came to be what it is today and confessing privately to a priest became the norm.  Most Protestant Churches, however, despite their very strong dependence on the Bible as the source of all their beliefs, do not consider private confession, or the view that it is a sacrament, as having any Scriptural justification.

 

Whatever one’s position on the Sacrament, what is perhaps forgotten in all this institutionalisation of rituals in the Catholic Church is that, as the readings of today point out, it is ‘metanoia’ that leads to the forgiveness of sins.  This is clear from the Catholic Church teaching on Sacraments which insists that a Sacrament is only an exterior expression of an interior reality. Therefore, in the Sacrament of Confession/ Reconciliation, whatever our fulfilment of the ritual and other external form of repentance  unless this exterior action reflects an internal metanoia or change of heart, there is no forgiveness of sins, and going innumerable times to Confession would make absolutely no difference. 

First Reading Acts 3:13-15, 17-19

Peter said to the people:
“The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied in Pilate’s presence when he had decided to release him.  You denied the Holy and Righteous One  and asked that a murderer be released to you.  The author of life you put to death,  but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.
Now I know, brothers,  that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did;  but God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer.  Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.”

Second Reading  1 Jn 2:1-5a

My children, I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one.  He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world.  The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments.  Those who say, “I know him,” but do not keep his commandments are liars, and the truth is not in them. But whoever keeps his word,
the love of God is truly perfected in him.

Gospel    Lk 24:35-48

The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way, and how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of bread.  While they were still speaking about this,  he stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
But they were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost.
Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled?  And why do questions arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.  Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” And as he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed, he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of baked fish; he took it and ate it in front of them. He said to them,  “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,
that everything written about me in the law of Moses  and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.”
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.  And he said to them,  “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name  to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.”