Why do we have to confess our sins to a priest?

Is there anything more embarrassing than admitting to someone else your faults and failings, especially to an authority figure that is definitely not a personal friend? How much more so for an adolescent? It doesn’t seem fair or right! I can tell God my faults without having to tell somebody else! That way nobody has to know what I did. 


And yet, that is what we the Sacrament of Reconciliation requires. Why? In the early days of the Church, when someone committed a mortal sin like murder or adultery or denying the faith, one had to publicly confess it and then show public penance. Even the Emperor Theodosius did this before he was accepted back into the Church. When the Irish monks re-evangelized Europe they brought with them private confession, with private penance. No more admitting to everyone what had been done.

But the requirement of telling a representative of the Church, the priest, was still important. In giving the Apostles the Holy Spirit Jesus said: “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained” (Jn. 20:22). This presupposes that the sins are somehow communicated! We need to confess our sins for our own sake. We need to hear out loud the evil we have done and own up to it. Only when we repent can we be forgiven and reconciled with God. Read more about the acts of the penitent in the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the Catechism, par. 1450-1460.

Know your faith. Live your faith. Teach your faith.