Why do catholics confess their sins to a priest?

Answer 1

It is based on one verse, John 20: 23 Jesus says, If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them: if you retain the sins of any they are retained.

Many Catholics take this verse alone as the ultimate truth (much like taking Peter as the name of their first pope and building a church on the idea.) Many of the Catholic doctrines, that is those having anything Biblical about them, come from one or two verses ripped out of context. The problem with doing this, is not looking at the time. There are different stages to the development of the Christian Church, from the gospels to Acts was the period of transition from the Old to the New Testament. Jesus was sent to us in the form of man to fulfill prophecy, prepare us for His Kingdom, and eventually bring His Kingdom. The Disciple's ability to forgive and retain sins was a tool for them to spread His good news across the world. Never does The Bible talk about a priesthood being passed down along with this gift. They were instructed to wait for the fulfillment of their gift, The Holy Spirit. At that time the Spirit came by laying on of hands, as it was the first time God sent His Spirit. Today, when we call on Jesus as our savior with a humbled, and repentant heart, we receive the ultimate gift, God's Holy Spirit is sent to mark and guide us for an eternity with our loving Father, all through Jesus Christ. Amen!

Answer 2

Roman Catholic AnswerThis is the normal way in which Jesus has set up His Church to forgive sins. Penance is one of the seven sacraments, and confession to a priest is an essential part of the sacrament:

from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1455 The confession (or disclosure) of sins, even from a simply human point of view, frees us and facilitates our reconciliation with others. Through such an admission man looks squarely at the sins he is guilty of, takes responsibility for them, and thereby opens himself again to 'God and to the communion of the church in order to make a new future possible.

1456 Confession to a priest is an essential part of the sacrament of Penance: "All mortal sins of which penitents after a diligent self-examination are conscious must be recounted by them in confession, even if they are most secret and have been committed against the last two precepts of the Decalogue; for these sins sometimes wound the soul more grievously and are more dangerous than those which are committed openly.

When Christ's faithful strive to confess all the sins that they can remember, they undoubtedly place all of them before the divine mercy for pardon. But those who fail to do so and knowingly withhold some, place nothing before the divine goodness for remission through the mediation of the priest, "for if the sick person is too ashamed to show his wound to the doctor, the medicine cannot heal what it does not know."