Dr. John Bergsma

But as Catholics, we're only required to confess mortal sin, which is grave sin.

And the distinction between mortal sin and venial sin or deadly sin and non-deadly sin is actually out of the epistles of John, specifically in 1 John, where he talks about a sin that leads to death.

So this is a biblical distinction between sin.

sins that are death dealing and sins that are not comes straight out of the Bible.

So sins that are death dealing, we do need to go to a priest because at the end of John, we see in John 20, 22 and 23, we see our Lord

after his resurrection breathing on the apostles and saying to them which is already striking because there's only one other place i know of in scripture that god breathed on anyone yeah maybe there's more but which is adam yeah yeah breathe into his nostrils the breath of life making him the first man but also the first priest as it were and he's a priest of all humanity in the garden of eden and it's a priestly thing that's happening in uh john 20

They are a kind of race of new atoms.

There is that motif, beginning of a new humanity.

But it says, when he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.

If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

So immediately after his resurrection, Jesus confers on the, or shares with the apostles through the gift of the Holy Spirit, his own priesthood.

Because the right and the power to administer the forgiveness of sins belonged to the priests in the Old Testament.

People overlook this, but if you look in Leviticus 5, you'll find that if you sinned under the Old Covenant, you had to confess your sin.

And people don't get the implications of that because the text is not explicit about to whom do you confess, your wife, your neighbor, your best friend?

No, in context in Leviticus 5, the one to whom you have to confess that is the priest.

You have to go to the sanctuary, bring the animal, and you gotta tell the priest what it is that you did.

Wow.

Why?

Because the priest was the one who was charged with making sure that the ritual was properly performed.