Unscriptural wrong doctorine is a sin and deliberately teaching such a wrong doctorine means one becomes a stumbling block. (See REVELATION: 2: 14 -16)
The Roman Catholic Church today, calls it "Reconcilliation", before that they called it, going to "Confession".
The Roman Catholic Church believes that one cannot confess their sins directly to Jesus and He will forgive. Rather the Church believes that one must confess their sin to a priest and that the priest and the priest only, has the right and the power to ask Jesus for His forgiveness. The priest tells one during confession:
" I pray to Jesus, that, Through the power of Jesus the forgiver of sin, that you be absolved of your sin and forgiven. Go and sin no more."
In other words the Catholic church is teaching that a priest is intersessor between man and Jesus, man and God.
This is totally wrong doctorine, wrong teaching therefore the Catholic Church becomes a sumbling block in a persons life.
The Roman Catholic Church sites : JOHN: 20:23; "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained." as the church’s authority to religate priests as confessor rather than Jesus Chirist who actually died for the remission of sin.
This passage in JOHN: confers specific powers of forgiveness to Jesus apostles but as we know all rights given to the apostles are also confered upon all christians too. We all have the power to forgive.
To me to my way of thinking, this is in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus, the teachings of God, which makes it herecy and blasphemy, demeening Jesus and Jesus sacrifice to Our Father God through Jesus crucifixion and resurrection, thus making the Roman Catholic Church hypocritical towards their claim to be "Christian".
During the early years, the time of Moses, God instructed Aaron as High Priest the following:
LEVITICUS: 4: 23-26: (Levitical Law) (pre-crucifixion)
"Or if his sin wherein he hath sinned, come to his knowledge; he shall bring a kid of the goats, a male without blemish: And he shall lay hand upon the head of the goat, and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering before the Lord: it is a sin offering. And the priest shall take the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it upon the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and shall pour out his blood at the bottom of the altar of burnt offering. And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sins."
This was the teachings of Almighty God before Jesus had come to earth, been crucified and resurrected for the remission of all sin.
After Christ’s crucifixion, through Jesus as well as through His apostles we are given a different teaching.
In ACTS: 13: 37-39; Paul teaches, making reference to Jesus Christ:
"But he, whom God raised again saw no corruption. Be it known unto you therefore, men and bretheren, that through this man is preached unto you forgiveness of sins: And, by him, all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the laws of Moses."
COLOSSIANS: 1: 14-15: "In whom we have the redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature.
In other words the laws of Moses were not capable of forgiving all the sins of man so Christ had to die so that full forgiveness could be available to man.
Jesus teaches the following:At the moment of His death, Jesus was heard to pray; "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do."
In JOHN: 3: 14-18 and in JOHN: 14: 6; Jesus teaches us prior to his crucifixion that Jesus was sent by God our Father for the forgiveness of sin and to guide man through Jesus teachings back to our heavenly Father through our belief and faith in Jesus, His crucufixion and His resurrection leading us home to eternal life again with God our creator.
One can only conclude that the Roman Catholic Church, not only oversteps its authority by instructing church members that they must confess through a priest, that this instruction can possibly be seen as heresy,blasphemy and hypocritical, especially taking into consideration that by enacting such a ritual under the guise of it being a holy sacrament that the church serves itself and serves to diminish Jesus Christ, upon whom the Roman Catholic Church is supposed to be founded upon.