A Sermon For Richard: Re: Personal Responsibility/Confession

» hawknut - Re: Personal Responsibility/Confession

In response to Torquemada posted by Pinky102:

I hope I'm not too far off topic, but I want to comment on:

The priest puts himself between god and humans when he absolves sin and lays down the penance to be paid.

The doctrine behind confession and absolution is that the priest is the earthly representative of God - just as Jesus was, and therefore Jesus' apostles have the same God-given authority. I think this is based on Paul's thoughts in 1 Corinthians 4:1 ("So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God.") IMO, confession/absolution does address personal responsibility in that one examines his conscience, recognizes his own 'miss the mark' behavior, confesses it with his mouth, and accepts that he must do something to right the wrong. But I don't think praying three 'Hail Marys' as penance is appropriate retribution, nor is it any deterent to repeating the same offence.

Many nonCatholics oppose this God-representative doctrine, again I think based on Paul's thought in 1 Timothy 2:5 ("For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,...") Yet at the same time, they contend that their pastors/ministers speak for God, or God speaks through them. Frankly, I don't see that much difference between the two doctrines.

-- posted by hawknut