[chs68]

"I hope this helps answer your question!"

Well, it helps me to see things better from a Roman Catholic point of view.

Still, it doesn't really answer (for me, anyway) the question of why Jesus, if He intended -- or commanded -- that sins (or even a certain category of sins) be confessed through a priest to God, would respond to a request from His own disciples about the proper way to pray, and include in that prayer -- a prayer prayed directly to "Our Father" -- a request to have one's trespasses (or debts) forgiven.

Why, if Jesus commanded His followers to confess their (mortal) sins to God through someone else, would Jesus have included this specific petition -- prayed directly to "Our Father"?

Jesus could have prayed like this, when demonstrating the way to pray to His disciples: "Provide us a means for the forgiveness of our mortal sins", but that isn't what he says.

He seems to make a point, in this prayer He prays in response to His disciples' request for a demonstration of prayer, of demonstrating that the sinner may -- or should -- request his or her forgiveness directly from the Father.

[magisterium]

Try looking at it this way: to understand what He meant, you have to harmonize the two passages. Clearly, He gave the Apostles power to forgive sins for a reason, right? If He wanted people to take their sins directly to God alone, He would have been sure to omit giving mere men this power in John 20. John 20 becomes quite superfluous and downright contradictory if He wanted people to go to God directly. So, it becomes clear that, harmonizing this passage with the Our Father, petitioning the Father for forgiveness of sins is ordinarily to be done within the forum of Confession, at least for mortal sins. Or, if you like, the petition in the Our Father could be effective even before confession, if one considers that one is really asking, at this point, for the grace of true repentance and contrition for his sins, without which, one cannot be forgiven. One must repent before God before he can be forgiven by God. confession without any repentance or sorrow for one's sins is worthless.

Don't go overboard weighing one passage against the other. Each finds meaning in the other. And consider that all Churches before the 1500s taught that God's forgiveness is normatively found within the context of John 20, as the Catholic Church teaches to this day.