PRIESTS FORGIVING SINS IS SUPERSTITION
The Church says that there is no greater evil than mortal sin. Mortal sin is
serious sin. It deserves the unending punishment of Hell. It is serious because
of the insult and defiance it offers God more than anything else. Murder is not
as bad for being the ending of a life so much as it is for killing somebody that
God does not will to be killed.
The Church says sin is the greatest evil even when it does not result in eternal
damnation. It says the damnation is irrelevant to how bad the sin is for it is
the natural consequence of the sin. Sin is bad because of what it is and not
just because of its consequences. A mortal sin is still a mortal sin if you plan
to get rid of it in a few minutes. It is still a mortal sin if you repent and
can undo all the consequences soon after committing it.
To keep a sinner in mortal sin must be a sin. The absurd Catholic doctrine that
the priest is needed to forgive mortal sin in confession in the name of God
implies that God wants people forced to stay in this sin just because there is
no confessions on. The clergy are guilty of a great sin when they let this
happen for it is forcing the people to stay away from God. This shows the
clerical caste is a human not divine creation. To go the priest for forgiveness
for your sin is an unspeakable blasphemy for it implies that God is more
interested in putting the priest in a position of power over your soul and
sanctity and your eternal destiny than in pardoning for he will do nothing until
the priest gives the sanction. Jesus stated that he who attributes the works of
the Holy Spirit to the Devil will never be forgiven for this blasphemy is
unpardonable. He said this to the Jews who denied that God helped Jesus do an
exorcism. Surely to make a devil of God by saying he is behind the priestly
system of forgiving sins is a more serious and dangerous blasphemy? If any sin
is eternal it is more than the rest. At least the Jews did not accuse God of
being evil. A religion not admitting its god is evil does not mean the god or
religion is good. It means they are vile for not admitting it.
Catholic theologians challenge us to direct them to a Bible verse that proves
them wrong on sacramental absolution. We don’t need to. If the Bible does not
say it then somebody after Jesus’ made up the sacrament. The Bible teaching that
God is love is the only disproof. A loving God would not keep forgiveness from
penitents until the priest chants a spell over them.
Most Protestants see the Catholic sacrament of absolution as a superstitious
hoax. Some of them think that if the Catholic really believes in it that God
will understand that he wants God’s forgiveness from the priest and will pardon
the person even though the priest cannot pardon sins. But the Bible warns that
sincerity alone can’t put you right with God. Proverbs 14:12 says that there is
a way that seems right but it leads to death and the verse before goes on about
the house of wicked people being overthrown so it means the wrong way that seems
right will lead to spiritual death and divine retribution. See also Matthew
7:13,14. Protestants believe in once for all salvation when you repent all your
past and present and future sins. But the Catholic system only repents the first
two so it is fruitless.
Getting forgiven is the most important act of worship there is. You can’t give
God any love if you adhere to sin for sin is hearty opposition to God. When God
won’t accept prayers addressed to false Gods he will be even less likely to
accept a person who goes to a priest for pardon. The priest's forgiveness is the
same as an idol if it is fake.
The Catholic claims to be in sin. We know that all sin is mortal so priestly
absolution cannot work for the Catholic is really in mortal sin and the Church
says that adhering to one mortal sin and repenting the rest is no good and
actually mocks God’s mercy. A mortal sinner cannot sincerely repent some mortal
sins and not others for she or he is the enemy of God and accordingly cannot get
pardoned.
The Bible says that all are sinful and all are mortal sinners so it agrees with
all this. With this view of sin, how could Christ have authorised priestly
absolution?
If Catholics want the priest to pardon them in the cheerless semi-darkness of a
box then they should burn their Bibles for being Protestant. Nobody should want
the forgiveness of a God or Church that holds that God is right to withhold the
power to forgive sins from laypersons even in a state of absolute necessity. I
mean that if a person is dying you cannot absolve them unless you are a priest.
No matter how holy you are even the lowest scoundrel of a priest is needed to
save the person’s soul. This is extremely offensive to reasonable people.
Contrition means repenting for the love of God and for his sake alone – this is
called perfect contrition. Imperfect contrition means repenting for the love of
God and some other reason. Attrition means repenting without any concern for God
at all. If you resolve to get forgiveness for sin and not to sin again simply
because you want something from God say health or his blessing or are afraid of
eternal damnation that is attrition. Attrition or imperfect contrition can be
simply or partly because the sin is heinous. It can do a good job of seeming
like true repentance but it is more worried about how you have degraded yourself
than about how bad the act is.
The Church says that a sincere act of perfect contrition made by the dying
person is not as good as confession for he has to intend to confess if he is
able and since the sacrament can forgive sins even without perfect contrition it
is more powerful and trustworthy than it. The problems are that it is easy to
make an act of perfect contrition which implies that you hate sin so much that
you would do anything to make up for it and avoid it and then one hour later you
find that you are sinning again which shows that you were only deluding
yourself. Confession is the only way to be sure you are really forgiven (page
14, Confession Quizzes to a Street Preacher, Fr Carty or Question 831, Radio
Replies, Vol 1). This seems like magic but Rome is compelled to teach it for it
says imperfect contrition can only help you if you go to confession. It puts
disposition and sincerity in second place to a ritual for even if there is doubt
about the sincerity of the penitence, a ritual isn’t going to make any
difference for it can’t work without penitence! You can delude yourself with
attrition as well as contrition so the confessional does not afford any greater
certainty. This shows that if Jesus gave power to forgive sins to the apostles
that they could only use it when the Holy Spirit told them that the person was
in the right spiritual state to receive absolution which would indicate that it
was the apostles power alone and could not be passed on.
The insistence on confession is occultism. It also suggests that Protestants who
do not have confession know in their hearts that they might not be forgiven at
all despite the promise of Christ which would make them to be self-deceiving
hypocrites. What kind of Church would tell a dying man, woman or child that
their salvation is not very certain when the priest won’t be able to make it in
time? The Church may not say that to them when they are lying there dying but it
says it to them in life.