What you say and what your 'brethern say seems to be two different things...
These bogus "confession" practices (confessing and praying directly to Jesus) don't have the safeguards (or the validity) of the Real Thing.
It doesn't ... that's just the point. It's as bogus as igniting them on a barbeque. Only a priest can forgive sins - in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
God can not, or will not forgive your sins unless you go thru a Catholic priest...This of course is heresy...But as long as you confess to Jesus, you're covered...
It's interesting how that the Catholic church has convinced it's members that only the priestly class can understand the scriptures...They will pick out a verse, or two, write untold numbers of pages, chapters and books on the verse as to what it means, and then convince you that their assertation is somehow biblical...And it then gets repeated as actual truth...
Millions up millions of Protestant Christians who actually read the scriptures, precept upon precept, line upon line, do, and have known better to fall for the tactics of your church...
If you want salvation, you go directly to God...If you want forgiveness of your sins, you go directly to God, the giver of these 'gifts'...
If so, then how do you know which sins are forgiven and which are retained?
In John 20:22 - the Lord "breathes" on the apostles, and then gives them the power to forgive and retain sins. Why do you disagree with His decision?
This is, in a way, true of all the Sacraments. We should not adopt an overly legalistic, mechanical, and isolating view of the sacraments. We are called to a life of "continual conversion," and God graciously gives us ways to do this through the sacraments, which we OUGHT to do if we understand that we are called by God to do it! But God is ALWAYS free to act in our lives at any time, in any way He wants.
Let me give you an example. Naaman the Syrian and you sincerely want to be cleansed of the dread disease of leprosy.
He gets the impression from his Hebrew slave girl that there is a prophet in Samaria who can help him. He is a great general, from the important and wealthy city of Damascus, and he carries a letter from the king asking for healing.
He journeys on down and encounters Elisha (sort of): actually Elisha did not come out at all. He only sent word to Naaman, “Go and wash in Jordan seven times.”
He gets angry and says that there are a hell of a lot rivers in Damascus, broader and more beautiful and better than this glorified minnow creek of the Jews, the Jordan.
Can't this Israelite God just heal him directly?
Can't this prophet just go zap with a magic wand in the name of God and cleanse him like that?
But seeing as he's in desperate straits with the leprosy and all, he humbles himself in the eyes of all his armed cohort, and dips himself seven times in the Jordan, and --- you know the rest.
The point is, of course God could cure Naaman instantly. But He wanted him to be cured in a better way: in a way that would be definitely humbling, and yet wonderfully effective, and that would not only get rid of his disease but also bind him in a mysterious way to Israel.
The Sacraments--- all of them, including Confession --- are like that. God can wash us, confirm us, feed us, forgive us and all the rest, but He wants to do it in a way that binds us to the whole Body of Christ which is His Church.
If Naaman had said, "Heck with this, I'll go to God directly" --- too proud to go to a man who would prescribe a somewhat humbling, physical procedure -- what would have happened to him?
Your opinion?