Who Forgives Sins: God or Priest?

by Admin · October 3, 2023

Photo: Cathopic

Question: A social media post by a priest stated that one of a priest’s functions is to forgive sins. I think that’s wrong. In the sacrament of reconciliation, who actually forgives the sins — God, the priest, or both?

Answer: Hopefully that post was listing the functions of a priest in some kind of shorthand. To be clear: In the sacrament of reconciliation, it is God who forgives sins, but the priest acts as a mediator between the penitent and God.

The Catholic Church teaches that when a person sins, they harm their relationship with God and with the Church community. Through the sacrament of reconciliation, the penitent confesses their sins to a priest and expresses contrition for their actions. The priest, acting in the person of Christ, absolves the penitent of their sins, and grants them God’s forgiveness.

The priest does not forgive sins on his own authority or power. He acts as an instrument of God’s forgiveness, and the absolution he grants is not his own, but God’s.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that “the priest is the sign and the instrument of God’s merciful love for the sinner” (1465).

Asked and answered in the August 2023 issue of the Southern Cross