Confession to Priests by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 20, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 20.

Confession to Priests

By Editor

The “Christian Leader” says that a lady attended “the Catholic missionary meeting at Dallas, and put questions in the query box.” One of her queries was: “The Bible says, ‘Confess your faults one to another.’ When people confess to the priests, do the priests confess to the people?” The question was not answered. The confessional is one of the greatest inventions of the Papacy. It gives the papal church a hold on the people that is exceedingly strong. Catholics go to the confessional from a sense of duty, and we admire their spirit of devotion. But it might be a help to many of them to know that God does not require any of us to confess in secret to a priest that has the same sinful nature as all the rest of humanity. God in His word does not authorize the confessional, and no church has a right to demand it. Let devout Catholics everywhere study their Bibles for themselves, as is their right and duty, and they will see that the Lord is not the author of confessing in secret to priests. When our heavenly Father says, “Confess your faults one to another,” He is asking us to have that sense of righteousness and courtesy that will cause us to go to a person that we have wronged, or before whom we have exerted a bad influence through our “faults,” and properly acknowledge it. Any one can see the rightfulness of this; but who can see the right of one sinner going to another and confessing his sins as tho the confessor were God?