Do You Have to Confess to a Priest?
“I’ll just take my sins directly to God. No need for a middle man.”
If you’ve spent any time talking with non-Catholic Christians, or lapsed Catholics, you’ve heard this objection. It’s often paired with “Only God can forgive sins”, “We are saved through faith, not acts of merit like going to confession,” or “We are all part of a priesthood now”, as proof that Catholic practices like confession are unnecessary or even unbiblical.
So what’s the deal? If God can forgive sins directly—and He can—why do Catholics confess their sins to a priest at all?
The short answer is this: you don’t have to confess your sins to a priest—but Christ clearly intended that you should. And the practice is biblical, historical, and remarkably effective.
The Catholic Church does not teach that priests forgive sins by their own power. That’s a common misunderstanding. Confession is a sacrament instituted by Christ for our benefit, not a limitation of God, and not a way that Christians must “earn” forgiveness. Christ is always the one who forgives. His sacrifice is sufficient to cover all sin past, present, and future. The priest acts in the person of Christ (in persona Christi), serving as an instrument of Christ’s healing and mercy. In other words, when you confess to a priest, you are not confessing instead of to God, you are confessing to God, in the way Christ Himself established.
Scripture clearly distinguishes between sins that rupture our relationship with God and those that wound it. “There is sin which is mortal… and there is sin which is not mortal” (1 John 5:16–17). This distinction is foundational to the Catholic understanding of confession. Mortal sin separates us from God and requires reconciliation. Venial sin damages the relationship but does not destroy it.
After the Resurrection, Jesus does something remarkable: “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained’” (John 20:22–23). This passage only makes sense if sins are being confessed out loud to the apostles. How else could they know which sins to forgive or retain? This authority did not die with the apostles. It was handed on—through ordination—to their successors, just as the Church itself was.
Catholics affirm with Scripture that all baptized believers share in a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9), called to offer spiritual sacrifices and proclaim the Gospel. Yet the Bible also reveals a distinct ministerial priesthood with real authority given by Christ to the apostles and their successors. Jesus entrusted the apostles with the power to bind and loose (Matthew 16:19; 18:18), to forgive sins in His name (John 20:21–23), and St. Paul speaks of this ordained ministry as a specific calling through the laying on of hands (1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6). Therefore, while all Christians participate in Christ’s priesthood by baptism, not all are given the sacramental authority of ministerial priests, which exists to serve and build up the royal priesthood of the faithful (Ephesians 4:11–12).
The New Testament shows Christians openly confessing sins: “Many of those who believed came forward, confessing and divulging their practices” (Acts 19:18). It also states that you should “Confess your sins to one another…” (James 5:16). Think about it. With these verses (and many more in the NT and OT that support confession) how can you say “I’ll just take my sins to God—no need for a middleman”? And what verses would you use to support this claim?
From the earliest centuries, confession to clergy was the norm—not a medieval invention, but an apostolic one. Like many other teachings I used to believe (“once saved always saved”, “sin is sin”, “baptism is just a symbol”, etc.) in order to get to these conclusions, the dance around the Bible is exhausting.
So… Do You Have to Confess to a Priest—strictly speaking? No. God can forgive sins however He chooses. But that’s not the right question. The better question is: How did Christ choose to forgive sins through His Church?
God doesn’t just want to forgive you, He wants to heal you. And He knows something about human nature: we need to hear the words “You are forgiven” spoken aloud. In confession, God forgives the sin. The priest declares that forgiveness with Christ’s authority.
When we sin, we are commanded by God to “Go and sin no more.” In my experience, it is far easier to rationalize sin when it stays abstract and private. But when you have to confess it—especially to another man who understands weakness, struggle, and temptation—something changes. There is accountability. There is humility. There is grace. There is compassion instead of condemnation. Confession doesn’t just wipe the slate clean, it strengthens us to actually stop sinning.
The sacrament of confession is not a Catholic loophole, power grab, or obstacle between you and God. It is:
Biblical – instituted by Christ and practiced by the apostles
Historical – present from the earliest days of the Church
Workable – because it addresses both the spiritual and human realities of sin
Confession is not about a middle man. It’s about a merciful God who loves us enough to meet us where we are—and heal us through His Church. And that’s why Catholics don’t just confess their sins directly to God. They confess the way God Himself chose.
