Why do Catholics confess their sins to a priest instead of confessing to God?
The Bible teaches us that only by confessing our sins can we achieve forgiveness from God. How do we know this? Again, the Bible tells us these facts. Let’s start with the Old Testament. In II Samuel 12:13, David confesses his sins to Nathan and was given assurance from Nathan that his sins were forgiven. From the New Testament we see many verses regarding confessing sins, however, we will stick to only the verse pertaining to the authority that God gave man. Look at John 20:22-23 it states that Jesus “breathed” on them and said: (John 20:22-23) Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. How can anyone take this out of context, this passage is as clear as day? God has given man the authority, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to forgive sins. It is interesting to note that there is only two places in the Bible that the term “breathe” is found as an action performed by God. The first, of course,
