You stated “I disagree with confessing sins to a priest...who then passed judgement on the price to be paid for said sin.”
You hit on one of the most important issues I have with the Catholic church.
How many times in your life have you told someone a “secret” that if disclosed would ruin your life? Now, knowing that that person knows your deep dark secret its possible that if you “piss them off” they will tell someone about it.
Whether or not they do is not the point...the point is that you know they know and the possibility is there...forever. It gives them power over you and each and every time you see them and look them in the eye, you have the feeling that they now have some type of special power over you....the secret, or worse yet, the secrets.
When in confession, the priest knows who you are. He can see you through the screen and can know you by your voice.
Confession is physiological manipulation to hold you from leaving the faith (or not abiding by it) and it has worked very well for the church.
...”Confession is physiological manipulation to hold you from leaving the faith (or not abiding by it) and it has worked very well for the church.”.....
Thus Jesus can be trusted with it all and another reason why there is one mediator between God and man.
Most confessionals have a screen which you cannot see through. It is also posible, as many Catholics do, to go to a church where you are not known.