“It is necessary to confess our sins to those to whom the dispensation of
God’s mysteries is entrusted. Those doing penance of old are found to have
done it before the saints. It is written in the Gospel that they confessed their
sins to John the Baptist; but in Acts they confessed to the Apostles, by
whom also all were baptized.”
St. Pacian of Barcelona, Letters to Sympronian 1, 6 (inter 375-392
AD)
“God never threatens the repentant, rather He pardons the penitent. You
will say that it is God alone who can do this. True enough, but it is likewise
true that He does it through His priests, who exercise His power.”
St. Jerome, Commentaries on Ecclesiastes 4, 4 (c. 388-389 AD)
“If the serpent, the devil, bites someone secretly, he infects that person with
the venom of sin. And if the one who has been bitten keeps silence and
does not do penance, and does not want to confess his wound to his brother
and to his master, who have the word that will cure him, they cannot very
well assist him. For if the sick man is ashamed to confess his wound to the
physician, medicine will not cure that to which it is not applied.”
Pope St. Leo I, Letter to the Bishops of Campania, Samnium and
Picenum 168, 2 (459 AD)
“I decree also that the presumption contrary to the apostolic regulation,
which I recently learned is being committed by some in an illegal
usurpation, is by all means to cease. With regard to penance, certainly what
is required of the faithful is not that the nature of individual sins be written
in a document and recited in a public profession, since it is sufficient that
the guilt of consciences be indicated to priests alone in a secret confession.”
Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566)
Pt. II, Ch. V: After His Resurrection He breathed on the Apostles,
assembled together, saying: Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins you
shall forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins you shall retain, they are
retained. Now in giving to priests the power to retain and forgive sins, it is
evident that our Lord made them also judges in this matter…
This doctrine the pastors should teach as defined by the holy Council of
Trent, and handed down by the uniform doctrine of the Catholic Church.
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