Confession of Sins to Priests
Matthew 16:18-19 : And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.
Jesus told Peter that He "will to thee the keys ...". The keys of the kingdom of heaven were given ONLY to Peter. The word thee is the personal pronoun of the second person singular, so thee was addressed to Peter alone, not to all twelve apostles. Peter was given the authority and power to bind and loose things on earth.
Matthew 18:18 : Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.
If things are still not resolved then we should bring it to the Church, which according to the words of Jesus Christ, has the final authority. The Church has this authority only because Jesus gave His Church such authority.
Mark 1:5 : And there went out to him all the country of Judea and all they of Jerusalem and were baptized by him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.
John 20:21-23 : He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.
The apostles were sent by Jesus, they didn't send themselves. The Lord Jesus gave them the authority to forgive or retain sins. If no one confesses his sins then how do people entrusted with authority to forgive sins know what to forgive ?
2 Corinthians 5:18 : But all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.
James 5:16 :
Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
In the Catholic Church, one can see that we, Catholic Christians, take the above biblical texts very seriously and put them into practice. Priests, bishops, cardinals and popes go to confession !!
The above list of quotes of the Sacred Scripture is by no means exhaustive. I have selected only the texts that I believe are so obvious.
Unless otherwise indicated, all biblical texts are quoted from the Douay-Rheims Bible.
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