SNAPCHAT CONFESSIONS
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat are all social media apps for communicating with friends and whomever. Probably the most popular is Facebook and Twitter. I have a twitter account but don’t know how to use it. One that is seemingly coming on strong is Snapchat. I have that app also and, no, I don’t know how to use it either. Your “kids” know how to use all of these. “Snapchat is a text-, photo- and video-messaging app that you use to send messages that will disappear one to ten seconds after your friend receives them. You determine how long the recipient(s) can view the message.” That just about describes my memory.
Now there is a new snap to Snapchat. Snapchat confessions. “A self-proclaimed — and anonymous — ordained priest in the San Antonio, Texas, area says he is accepting digital confessions over social media app Snapchat. The mystery man of cloth who goes by “@PriestDavid” told News 4 San Antonio that he’s handling missives for the religious sacrament digitally until March 16. But the unconventional gambit is turning some heads among the faithful. “It’s not confession. It’s not what the sacrament is all about,” said the Rev. Tony Vilano, who hears confessions the old-fashioned way at San Fernando Cathedral. “He’s not a Catholic priest. The church teaches when you go to confession, you should go to a priest either behind a divider or face to face,” he said (New York Post, March 3, 2015). One deacon said, “digital confessions are contrary to church teachings.” If folks would just follow the Bible, they wouldn’t find themselves in a quagmire of silly controversies.
First of all, there is only one who can forgive sins. God! And there is only one mediator between God and man and that is Christ (1 Tim. 2:5-6). To be forgiven of sins one must believe (Heb. 11:6); repent (Acts 2:38); confess – faith in Christ – not the sinners prayer (Rom. 10:9-10); and be baptized for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38). After becoming a Christian, sins are forgiven through repentance and prayer (Acts 8:22).
According to the Bible, all Christians are priests (1 Pet. 2:1-10; Rev. 5:10). We are instructed to confess our faults one to another and pray one for another (James 5:16); we are taught to forgive one another (Eph. 4:32); but it is God alone who can forgive us our sins (Mt. 6:9-13). It is the blood of
Christ that takes away sin (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:13-14; 1 John 1:7). Don’t know, but maybe these Catholic priests are saying, “Don’t horn in on my territory.” The
Catholic Church places its priest higher than God. Note the following: “Is the Catholic who confesses his sins to a priest any better off than the non-Catholic who confesses directly to God? Yes. First, he seeks forgiveness the way Christ intended. Second, by confessing to a priest, the Catholic learns a lesson in humility, which is avoided when one confesses only through private prayer. Third, the Catholic receives sacramental graces the non-Catholic doesn’t get; through the sacrament of penance sins are forgiven and graces are obtained” (Catholic Answers).
I think I’ll just stick with God and the Bible. Don’t need that middle man.
Larry