Many people see Catholics using "confession" as the same type of excuse mechanism for the same types of things. In fact, confession is explicitly for such issues, while your link between them and sola fide is argumentatitve at best.
I wonder if creating cognitive dissonance around this issue is the real purpose behind this article.
Not only confession but the concept of purgatory. With confession and purgatory, you can party it up and get to "work off" the sins in purgatory for 24 hours. A little fire and flogging never really hurt./s