Thanks. Also I neglected one other Catholic practice I disagree with: While the Bible does state you must confess your sins, I have never found any requirement that you must confess only to a priest.
And you never will. For presbuteros (elders) were never titled “hiereus” (= priest, from "preost"), which is only used for Jewish and pagan priests which have a unique sacerdotal function as their primary role, unlike NT presbuteros.
And while the binding and loosing aspect that pertains to forgiveness (which can be related to healing) - that of God removing chastisement due to intercession of others, as Christ showed, (Mk. 2:5-11; Jn. 5:8ff) - does apply primarily to the elders, yet what Jn. 5:16-18 exhorts is believers also confessing faults to other believers and praying for such that they may be healed.
For while the judicial function of binding and loosing in Mt,. 18 begins with the magisterium, the spiritual power of binding and loosing can be had by any righteous laity of fervent prayer:
Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 18:18-19)
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. (James 5:16-18)
James is teaching that any righteous man can be like Elias who bound the heavens from raining for 3.5 years, and then loosed them again. And which has application in other areas (not "name is claim it.")
Moreover, Mt. 18:15-17 specifically deals with judgments in personal matters. And which power to bind or loose was not new, but was based upon the means of judgment seen in the OT. In Dt. 17, if there arose a matter too hard for them in judgment, "between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within their gates," then it was brought before the Levitical magisterial authority, whose judgment was binding to one, and loosing to the other.
According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. (Deuteronomy 17:11)
The Lord also enjoined conditional obedience to the Scribes and Pharisees, (Mt. 23:2) and who claimed the power of dissolving vows, etc. But not as being the supreme infallible standard, thus the Lord reproved their unScriptural judgments by Scripture. (Mk. 7:2-16
Paul with the church also exercised this binding power in 1Cor. 5 "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (1 Corinthians 5:4-5)" (1 Corinthians 5:5)
And fathers and husbands are given some binding and loosing power in regards to daughters and wives respectively. (Num 30:3-7)
Even valid civil authorities have a power to bind and loose, physically. (Rm. 13:1-7) .
Yet even though disobedience to the OT magisterium could a capital offence, yet it was not infallible, which Rome presumed to claim she is, nor was the novel idea of perpetual magisterial infallibility ever promised or seen or necessary for discernment and preservation of faith.