How was Penance instituted?

Answer 1

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Catholic AnswerWe really don't have much first hand information about how the sacrament of confession was instituted. We know from Scripture that it is necessary to confess your sins, and that Our Blessed Lord gave the Apostles, and their successors the ability to forgive sins. The passages normally cited for confession are 1 John 1:9; James 5:16; and Acts 19:18, but these verse probably do not refer to the sacrament of Penance. We do know that the Sacrament has been around since Our Blessed Lord instituted it, we just don't know how. The discussion below is from Radio Replies, an old Catholic program that used to answer questions for protestants:

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from

Radio Replies, by Fathers Rumble and Carty, 1942

825. We Protestants believe that God alone can forgive sin.

And that is the Catholic teaching also. But the question concerns the way in which God has chosen to administer that forgiveness. We Catholics add that God can delegate His power if He wishes, just as the supreme authority in the state can delegate a judge to administer justice. Would you deny to God that power?

826. But can you prove that God did delegate that power to men?

Yes, Christ was God, and in St. Jn. XX., 21-23 we read these remarkable words, "As the Father hath sent Me I also send you. When He said this He breathed on them; and He said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." Now Christ's mission was to destroy sin, and He gave that same mission to His Apostles. Knowing that their merely human power as men was quite insufficient, He gave them a special communication of the Holy Spirit for this special work. To say that Christ did not confer a true power to forgive sins is to rob the whole ceremony and the words of Christ of any real meaning. And it was obviously a power to be exercised, Christians applying to the Apostles for forgiveness.

828. I believe that the Apostles received the power, but it was for them only and has not been handed on in the Church.

Christ commissioned His Church to teach all nations till the end of the world. The Apostles had to hand on all essential powers to their successors. And the conditions of salvation must be the same for us as for the first Christians. If those subject to the Apostles had to obtain forgiveness from their fellow men, there is no reason why we should be exempt. We share the same privileges as the early Christians and must have the same obligations. Till the Reformation all Christians went to confession. In the 4th century we find St. Ambrose defending Confession by saying that if a man can forgive sin by baptizing, he claims nothing greater when he claims the power to forgive sin through the Sacrament of Penance. That Priests possessed such power was Christian doctrine in his time and is still the doctrine of the Catholic Church. The Greek Church, which broke away from the Catholic Church in the ninth century, has retained this Apostolic practice. Protestantism gave up the practice in the 16th century because it was uncomfortable and mortifying. But once admit such a principle, and one could abolish every uncomfortable commandment of God.