They say confession is good for the soul. But in Catholicism, confession is fundamentally an evil requirement held over the head of the sinner as a means, not of grace, but of control.
No one in the Roman system–including little children and delicate young maidens–has any hope of forgiveness without the ministrations of another sinner like themselves, the Roman Catholic priest. Sadly, Catholic confession is a form of spiritual malpractice.
The priest may know a lot about sinful actions, but no priest understands the true nature of sin, or the complexity of the human heart, or the depths of divine love and mercy. Deeply personal confession, the cry of a wounded heart, should be heard only by the Creator of the human soul. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became one of us, and at this moment intercedes for us in heaven.
Heb. 4:15-16 says, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot symphatize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
True confession itself is beyond the ability of any human being to accomplish. Romans 8:26 tells us that “the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.” The weight of guilt fits into no language formula, but the Spirit of God can understand, interpret, and deal with our inexpressible thoughts and feelings.
God does not require a sinner to understand the four parts of confession as the Church prescribes them. God does not have a confession calendar or a formulaic statement that must precede or follow confession. The Bible is clear about confession: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).
Imagine the life of a human priest hearing confessions daily. He will inevitably learn to categorize the confessions and individuals he hears. He may think, this person is way too sensitive, or this person tells me the same thing every week, or this person is exaggerating, or this person did what!? Humans love to lump things in groups of seven, so I suspect most priests have a small number of categories into which sinners fit.
After a few years of hearing confessions, the priest cannot help but become numb, cynical, or bored. It’s just human nature. No human being is able to bear sin as the priest is required to without developing some sort of predictable responses that become rote. The priest is trying to act like God in his sympathy for the sinner, but he ends up being merely what he is, a sinner.
Human beings have limits to forgiveness. Peter thought he was being generous when he told Jesus he might be willing to forgive someone up to seven times! Jesus’ response multiplied Peter’s number by seventy times.
Of course, Jesus meant to teach Peter that his human idea of forgiveness underestimated the number by orders of magnitude! (See Matt. 18:21-22.) Jesus meant that forgiveness is practically limitless. No sincere prayer for forgiveness will ever be refused by Jesus, no matter the number of requests.
In addition, the number 70 x 7, or 490, can be found in Daniel 9, where we find the seventy-week prophecy. While confessing the sins of the children of Israel and pleading for the desolated sanctuary in Jerusalem, Daniel learns that Israel as a nation would have 490 years of probationary time before God would give up on the nation. This time began in 457 B.C. with the decree of Artaxerxes I allowing Jewish captives to fully restore Jerusalem. The 490 years reaches to the last week, from 27 A.D. to 34 A.D.
During the last “week” of the prophecy, the Messiah would arrive (Jesus was baptized in 27 A.D.), be crucified (31 A.D.), and then Israel would be abandoned as a people (34 A.D.) At that point, the gospel would go to the Gentiles.
The seventy-week prophecy emphasizes the amount of time God was willing to continue calling literal Israel His people. The crucifixion of Jesus demonstrated a final rejection of God’s plan for the nation of Israel. And consider this: the 490-year prophecy did not even begin until God had mercifully dealt with Israel for the previous thousand years!
It should be clear that no human being knows how to forgive as God forgives, and that therefore, no priest can fill the place of Christ in the confessional.
God is calling His people out of the vile system of confession invented by Rome. As long as hope remains, He will continue calling. When every living person makes a final decision for or against Jesus, the end will come. And prophecy indicates that this time is near.