“Why tell a priest, when I can be forgiven by God directly?”

Penance and Reconciliation — a new start in forgiveness and reconciliation

🛡️The Church's answer: God alone is the source of forgiveness. At the same time sin damages our relationship with God, with our neighbor and with the Church, and so Christ entrusted the ministry of reconciliation to the Church. A priest does not forgive by a power of his own; he pronounces absolution in Christ's name and serves the reconciliation with the Church.

🧐If they press further: “Is a sincere prayer of repentance on my own worth nothing?” — Not at all. Perfect contrition is a grace of God and turns you back to him at once. Where grave sin is involved, though, it carries the intention of going to confession when that becomes possible, and through the sacrament you receive the certain word of forgiveness and reconciliation with the Church.

✨In one sentence: “Confession isn't begging a priest instead of God — it's receiving God's forgiveness and reconciliation in the way Christ entrusted to the Church.”