Tomorrow will surely bring more pain and sadness, but for the first time in a long time the voices of guilt have been replaced by an enveloping silence of peace. As I sit in the church sanctuary, the words spoken by Jesus—”It is finished”—have taken on an additional, more personal message: Not only was Jesus’ work on the cross completed when he spoke those words, but now my struggle with the burden of guilt is finally finished. He took my sin upon himself so that I may have life. Cold and alone, I walked into the confessional to receive reconciliation with God and his Church. I went in with tears of sorrow; I left with tears of joy.
When Michael Jordan—arguably the greatest player ever to step on a basketball court—returned to the sport after a two-year stint in baseball, he faxed two words to the owner of the Chicago Bulls: “I’m back.” Simple as that. He had returned home to the game he loved, to the world he knew. Nothing beyond these two words was needed, nothing else required. Jordan had returned home.
I often wonder what the biblical prodigal son had to say when he returned home. I don’t think it was much more than a humble, “I’m back.” I imagine he murmured this as he fell into the arms of his father, exhausted from a long and difficult journey. After he did so, he confessed to his father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Luke 15:21). Nothing more was needed, nothing more required. When we Catholics return to the Church, it is much like the return of the prodigal son or Michael Jordan. We come to our heavenly Father, saying simply, “I’m back.”
As the day approached for my first confession as a convert, I was eager to have peace in my life. My sins made me sick. But going into my first confession I had a lot of misconceptions. Would I really be forgiven? And, if so, how would I know? I wondered how the priest would react to my sins. Would he look shocked? Would he laugh? I imagined confessing to a gruff priest who wanted only to get it over with. These thoughts couldn’t have been more wrong. The opposite proved to be true.
Many Catholics I have talked to about my lengthy first confession experience couldn’t relate. One compared the confessional to the dentist’s office—the quicker the doctor pulls the tooth, the better. I responded that I don’t view the priest as a dentist or a doctor but rather as my father. I don’t want to downplay the fact that the Lord still works no matter how short or long it takes or how good a confessor the priest may be. Still, we shouldn’t forget how confession should and ought to be handled.
Protestants and Catholics agree on the importance of confessing one’s sin. The dispute is over whether the proper method is auricular confession to a priest (Catholics) or confession to God directly (Protestants).
In many contemporary Evangelical Protestant organizations you have what is called an accountability partner. It could be your mentor or your friend. Some people have multiple accountability partners. Some even have accountability groups. These partners are to remind you of your spiritual goals and to help you achieve them. They are to pray for you and provide godly counsel using Scripture. They are to remind you of Christ’s work on the cross and thus the forgiveness of your sins. Accountability partners help to put a human face on God.
Catholics often hear objections from these people to the sacrament of confession. Since I was once one of them, I shared many of Protestantism’s objections to auricular confession. Here are five main objections Catholics often hear—and that I once espoused myself—and my responses as a Catholic to each.
Busybody Argument
Humans are always trying to stick their noses into God’s business. Since only God can forgive sins and humans cannot, I should not confess my sins to a priest.
This is the same objection that the Jews had to Jesus: “Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7).
When I was a child, my dad took me aside and explained my responsibilities as a new big brother. I was to protect and look over my little sister, even if it meant getting hurt. I was to act under my father’s authority to guide and advise her. I was to take his place when he was not around. Our nation’s foreign policy works much the same way. There are ambassadors and diplomats who work under the authority of the U.S. president. They negotiate the agreements and treaties, but it is the president’s signature that goes on the document.
These examples—though darkly through a glass—show how the rite of reconciliation works. The priest acts under the authority of Christ. It is Christ’s work on the cross that paid the debt for your sin and his name signed to the contract with his blood. Archbishop Fulton Sheen expressed this sentiment when he said, “Whenever you see the hand of absolution of the priest, the priest raises his hand for absolution, picture Christ. He is the priest behind the priest, and his hand is dripping with the blood that was shed for the forgiveness of our sins, and it washes us pure and clean.”
The heart of the matter is whether God can or would work through man to accomplish his goals. If he never has or never would then perhaps the Protestants are correct in their objection. But who separated the waters in the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, God or Moses? Clearly it was God working through Moses who performed the miracles that led his people to safety. Who wrote the Bible, man or God through man? Obviously, the Church has taught that God worked through the prophets and evangelists to write both the Old and New Testaments. No cogent Protestant would dispute God’s work in the above circumstances.
In both of these examples, God works through man. Is it a stretch then to say that God works through the priest to forgive sins? Jesus was a man, and he forgave sins. The issue is not whether man can forgive sins but whether man alone can forgive a sin against God.
Catholics and Protestants would agree that man of his own accord cannot forgive sins. God forgives our sins, but Catholics know he has ordained that forgiveness be given through his representative, the priest. The power to forgive sins was given to the apostles by Christ Jesus himself: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23). It was Christ who established this sacrament and God who administers grace through the Church.
No Help Wanted Argument
Catholics are always adding to the simple faith of the Bible. In my relationship with God I don’t need any help. Confession to a priest might be beneficial, but it isn’t necessary.
Christ called us to the abundant life and to the fullness of faith, which the Catholic Church offers. Would one not pray because it is only beneficial and not “necessary”? Would we stop reading our Bibles because it is not necessary for salvation? No intelligent Protestant would make such a claim. In fact, most Protestants would argue that Christ taught us how to pray and commanded us to do so. If so, auricular confession should be done by all Christians to achieve the abundant life.
Like prayer and Bible studies, auricular confession offers many benefits. It helps form our conscience and turns us back toward God. Confession to a priest helps in the fight against evil and the temptations that it causes. It helps us in healing and to be more Spirit-filled. The virtues will become more apparent in our lives as we go to confession on a regular basis. Finally, the sacrament of confession leads us to be merciful and forgiving towards others as we ourselves are shown mercy and forgiveness.
We Catholics argue that confession is not only beneficial but necessary in the economy of salvation, especially if one is not in a state of grace. By “necessary” we mean it is the normal way salvation comes to an individual. When Protestants use the term “necessary,” they mean what is required to be “saved.” To them, our sacrament of confession would be at best optional. To us it is a command from Christ, who “gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18).
We do not view salvation as one point in time as do many Protestants, but rather as both a point and a process. A Protestant would say, “I was saved.” A Catholic would rightly say, “I was saved, am being saved, and will be saved.”
Evangelical Protestants often use the diagram of two circles to explain their faith. Both circles have a throne in the center. In the first circle, one’s self is on the throne, while Christ is standing outside the circle, and there is disarray within the circle. The other circle has Christ on the thrown in control of one’s life, the self on the outside, and there is order within. The sacrament of confession is going from the first circle to the second.
Catholics don’t do this just once but time and time again. It is by putting Christ continually at the center of one’s life that we are justified, are being justified, and will be justified.
Smoke and Mirrors Argument
Confessing to a priest is a parlor trick, all dressed up to look mystical, when in reality it is just a way to remind me of the finished work of Christ on the cross.
Whereas Protestant theology has a tendency to views things as either this or that, Catholic theology often takes a both/and approach. For Protestants it is either faith or works, Scripture or Tradition, predestination or free will; Catholics see it as being both faith and works, both Scripture and Tradition, and both predestination and free will.
Confession does hold us accountable while reminding us of Christ’s work on the cross as the Protestants claim. But it also justifies us. The sacrament is efficacious. Our sins are not forgiven at a later date—like Judgment Day—but right there in the confessional. Our sins are not just declared forgiven as if in a courtroom decree but internally inside each of us. Our transgressions are not only covered by the work of Christ on the cross but expunged from existence. Auricular confession helps us on our way to sainthood.
I would challenge my Protestant brethren by inquiring, why, if we can go to Christ, do we need to confess to anyone, as James commands? “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (Jas. 5:16). Isn’t Christ alone enough, or is James in error? I would argue that James is commanding us to confess our sins to one another, not only to Christ. This verse in and of itself does not lead to the conclusion that one must confess to a priest, but rather to anyone of faith. But if we take the verse in context, confession to a priest becomes clearer:
“Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven” (Jas. 5:14–15).
These verses come right before James’s command to confess our sins to one another. These verses help Catholics understand the origins of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick as well as that of reconciliation. James writes that we are to bring our sick not just to anyone, but to the elders of the Church. The word for “elders” in Greek is presbytereos. Presbytereos is where we get the word “priest.” The New American Bible translates it as “presbyters,” and the Douay-Rheims New Testament translates the Greek as “priest of the church.” These priests will pray over the sick and, if the sick man has any sins, the priest’s prayers will save him, i.e., the sick man will be forgiven.
James then tells us to confess our sins to each other, for the prayer of a righteous man has “great power in its effects.” Who are these “righteous” men? They are the elders of the Church referred to in James 5:14. They are “the priest[s] of the church.” They have the power to forgive sins in the name of God.
Oven-Mitt Argument
God is too hot for sinful Catholics to handle, so they put a priest between themselves and a holy God. I don’t need to do that since I can go directly to Jesus.
Catholics believe in in persona Christi, the belief that the priest is standing in the place of Christ in the confessional and during other sacraments. Note that this doesn’t mean instead of Christ, but rather in the place of Christ. Christ is present in the form of the priest. Christ is working through the priest. This puts a face and flesh on Christ (Col. 1:24) and helps us come to a deeper understanding of the truths and glory of the Church.
Protestants who say that Catholics are putting something between Christ and themselves not only misunderstand what we Catholics do, they misunderstand what they do. If what they maintained were true then there would be no need to attend Sunday services or to study the Bible. They would need only to go directly to Christ himself.
But these services and Bible studies lead Protestants to a deeper relationship with the Savior and thus are to be encouraged. They do not take Christ’s place but become tools through which the believer can meet him. Likewise, Mary, the saints, and—on this earth—priests lead us to a deeper and fuller relationship with Jesus Christ.
Confession to a priest is an extension of Old Testament Jewish rituals. Leviticus 16:21 describes a priest, Aaron, standing between God and man: “And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins; and he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and send him away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness.”
This Old Testament ritual by Aaron was not eradicated with the coming of Jesus; on the contrary, it was fully realized in the sacrament of reconciliation. Remember, Christ came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17). Christ ushers in it a New Covenant, taking the imperfect ritual in Leviticus and transforming it into the perfect sacrament we have today. In this way Christ is administering his grace through the priest so that when you see the priest, you are seeing Christ. “Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a figure of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ” (Aquinas, ST III:22:4C).
More Works Needed Argument
I watch my Catholic friends sin on the weekends then say, “Oh well, guess I’ll have to go to confession this week.” The Sacrament is used to provide easy forgiveness.
These Catholics may appear hypocritical and their forgiveness effortless. Everyone sins. Some people struggle against sin—sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding—while other people do not. The actions of some Christians don’t negate the truth of the gospel. Just because some Catholics and Protestants do not live out their faith does not mean it isn’t worthy of being lived out.
Likewise, the fact that some Catholics abuse the confessional (by not really being repentant and sorrowful for their disobedience) does not negate the importance and effect of this sacrament. Catholics who go to “confess” their sins and yet remain unrepentant will not have the effect of this grace. The grace will still be distributed through the priest, but will have no effect upon them.
Why? Not because God withholds his grace but because the unrepentant heart of the confessor cannot accept it. Paraphrasing Protestant speaker Brennan Manning, I would say to Catholics, “The leading cause of atheism and Protestantism today is Catholics who confess Jesus with their mouth, take him into their body in the Eucharist, profess allegiance to the pope, and yet do not live out their faith on a daily basis.” We Catholics need to realize that people are watching us. Our lives are a witness to the Church and her gospel. If evangelization is going to be effective, it must first start in our own lives.
Luke tells the story of the woman who washes Christ’s feet with her tears. I always wondered, Why was she crying? I thought for a long time the woman was grieving for the sins of her past. But now I think there was more to her tears than mere grief or pain. I think she had an attitude we lack: She was crying for happiness. She had found her heart’s desire and was overcome with joy (Luke 7:36–50).
Whose feet do our tears wash? Are we so proud that we don’t need repentance from our Father? Are our tears laid at the feet of materialism or greed or power or lust or psychiatrists or counselors or self-help books? Jesus is ready to meet you in a special way and in a special place if only you’ll go there. He is waiting to heal you and to wipe away every tear from your eyes and the pain from your heart.
During my first confession I felt God’s warm embrace and his heavenly hands wiping away my own tears saying, “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” My hand rose to my forehead and descended to my heart, reflecting my vertical relationship with God. Crossing my heart from the left to the right I represented my horizontal relationship with man. I realized that finally, on this day, I was reconciled to both. A tear rolled down my cheek and landed at His feet.