One of the great verses concerning the forgiveness of our sins achieved at the cross of Christ is 1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. How sweet are those words to the sinner! How magnificent and glorious is our Savior, faithful and just and forgiving! Unfortunately there have always been some who wish to add conditions and structures around this passage.
A new report is out that the church in Rome is seeking to reinvigorate the doctrine of penance by opening up the archives of the really bad sins that only the "pope" can forgive.
ROME – One of the Vatican's most secrecy shrouded tribunals, which handles confessions of sins so grave only the pope can grant absolution, is giving the faithful a peek into its workings for the first time in its 830-year history.
The Vatican has long lamented that fewer and fewer Catholics are going to confession, the sacrament in which the faithful can receive forgiveness if they sincerely confess their sins to a priest.
To combat the decline, the so-called "tribunal of conscience" invited the public into the frescoed halls of its imposing 16th-century palazzo for a two-day conference that ended Wednesday.
The aim was to explain what the Apostolic Penitentiary actually does, and thereby encourage more of the faithful to go to confession, said Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, the tribunal's No. 2 official.
"Even though it's the oldest department of the Holy See, it's very little known — specifically because by its nature it deals with secret things," he said. "We want to relaunch the sacrament of penance."
I found it interesting that the biggest sins are not genocide or other horrific crimes but sins that strike at Roman dogma, tradition or ceremonies.
Confessions of even the most heinous of crimes and sins — such as genocide or mass murder — are handled at the local level by priests and their bishops and are not heard by the tribunal.
Its work involves those sins that are reserved for the pope — considered so serious that a local priest or bishop is not qualified to grant absolution, said Cardinal James Francis Stafford, an American who heads the Apostolic Penitentiary.
These include defiling the Eucharist, which Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ. Stafford said this offense is occurring with more and more frequency, not just in satanic rites but by ordinary faithful who receive Communion and then remove the host from their mouths and spit it out or otherwise desecrate it.
Others include a priest breaking the seal of the confessional by revealing the nature of the sin and the person who sought penance, or a priest who has sex with someone and then offered forgiveness for the act.
These sins bring automatic excommunication from the church. Once absolution is granted, the excommunication is lifted, Stafford said.
So what is the problem? Shouldn’t we confess our sins, isn’t that what 1 John 1:9 says? Absolutely we should confess our sins, but is it a requirement that we confess those sins to a Roman priest? For that matter do we need or should we seek a human priest at all?
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb 4:14-16)
Christ and Christ alone is our only priest, and we no longer have nor do we need nor should we desire to have another. Is Christ sufficient or is He not?
I may not be representing the "official" dogma of the Roman church on penance, but the practical interpretation is that in order for sins to be confessed and forgiven, one must appear before a Roman official, and only a Roman official, and confess them and receive some sort of penance. From the Catholic Encyclopedia…
The Sacrament of Penance
Penance is a sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ in which forgiveness of sins committed after baptism is granted through the priest's absolution to those who with true sorrow confess their sins and promise to satisfy for the same. It is called a "sacrament" not simply a function or ceremony, because it is an outward sign instituted by Christ to impart grace to the soul. As an outward sign it comprises the actions of the penitent in presenting himself to the priest and accusing himself of his sins, and the actions of the priest in pronouncing absolution and imposing satisfaction. This whole procedure is usually called, from one of its parts, "confession", and it is said to take place in the "tribunal of penance", because it is a judicial process in which the penitent is at once the accuser, the person accused, and the witness, while the priest pronounces judgment and sentence. The grace conferred is deliverance from the guilt of sin and, in the case of mortal sin, from its eternal punishment; hence also reconciliation with God, justification. Finally, the confession is made not in the secrecy of the penitent's heart nor to a layman as friend and advocate, nor to a representative of human authority, but to a duly ordained priest with requisite jurisdiction and with the "power of the keys", i.e., the power to forgive sins which Christ granted to His Church. (Emphasis Added)
We not only don't have but we don't need a human priest nor do we worship a God unfamiliar with human suffering. He opened the way, He intercedes for His people. The idea that we need to confess a sin to a priest, or that certain sins require different levels of human intercession are foreign to the Bible and illegitimate. The only “duly ordained” priest that exists or we need is the great High Priest Jesus Christ, our only intermediary: For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, (1 Tim 2:5) Why does Rome even have these sorts of dogmas when they serve no purpose and are so clearly directly contradictory with the Scripture? One word: control.
The confessional is but one of the control methods exerted by Rome. By making the institution of the church essential for all aspects of the Christian life, the institution begins to exert control over individuals. The institution of the church is the sole source for so much in the Catholic's life. Have sins you want to confess? You have to go to the priest. Baptism and communion? Available only though the institution of the church and the intermediaries it appoints. Seeking to hear the Gospel? You need a priest to declare it and interpret it for you. How can a regular Joe without a seminary degree and a priestly collar hope to read the Word and understand it? From birth through your whole life to the Last Rites at death, you are controlled by the institutional Roman church and she controls you completely because you have abdicated all control to that organization.
There are many who wish to gloss over the differences of doctrine and core beliefs between Rome and orthodox Christianity. They urge us to focus on social issues, to find common ground. Christian leaders lined up to praise deceased disciples of Rome from “Pope” John Paul to “Mother” Theresa. However there can be no common ground among those who affirm and those who deny the Gospel, a Gospel that proclaims that sinners are justified by faith alone by grace alone in Christ alone. I am all for reconciliation with Rome, just as soon as Rome rejects the anathemas of Trent, when the “pope” stops having men bow before him and kiss his ring, when Rome declares that sinners are not and cannot be justified by anything other than the blood of Christ. Isn’t that harsh, don’t we all believe in the same basic things? No, we don’t. Christians recognize that a sinner is made right with God only one way, through faith alone in Christ. That essential, core doctrine is not only not taught by Rome, it is rejected as anathema.
Canon 9: "If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema."
Canon 12: "If any one shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ's sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified ... let him be accursed"
Canon 30: "If any one saith, that, after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise, that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world, or in the next in Purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened (to him); let him be anathema."
(for a complete list of these anathemas and the Scriptural refutation of them, see CARM’s article Council of Trent: Canons on Justification)
So what the Roman leaders at the Council of Trent declared almost 500 years ago, and has never been refuted or reversed by Rome, is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ of the unmerited justification of sinners by faith alone is anathema. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is declared accursed. How can we have any sort of fellowship with an institution that declares the Gospel anathema?
Unfortunately there are some creeping intrusions and some vestiges of Romanism in many Christian institutions and organizations.
Try becoming a member at a local Baptist church without having been properly baptized in a like-minded church. Try telling them that your friend Steve, who is a mature and committed Christian lay person, witnessed to you of Christ and after much prayer and wrestling with the Word you were born again by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit and submitted to baptism by Steve in a local river in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. See if that flies. Why, how can that be? Your friend Steve has not been duly ordained by a registered, incorporated 501(c)(3) church body! You need a pastor to interview you to make sure you are really saved, as if a pastor is more apt to recognize the fruit of conversion than a lay person. As if men with seminary degrees are not baptizing people who show no sign of regeneration outside of walking an aisle every Sunday across this nation. The heresies of Rome are insidious and seductive. The only defense against them is the Word. Stray from that and start placing your trust in men, in confession, in organizations and the slippery slope becomes almost inevitable.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23
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