Go to Tony in Phoenix, Arizona, listening on Sirius, you have Karlo Broussard,
what's your question for Karlo? Karlo, I grew up Catholic, I'm 58 now, altar boy,
Catechism; started having many questions, and I think...you need to
broaden your horizon to attract more young people to the Church. I remember
getting the bulletin and the Pope telling me which movie I could not go
see, and that birth control was bad, gay marriage; and so then I would--and then I'd
have to go into a confession booth instead of going right to the man,
and talk to a complete stranger and air my sins out to a complete stranger,
and he pops five Hail Marys on me and I'm back on the street, like it's all
good. So I think all of these things, that young people have many questions about
it and then...all of these--here's-- the Catholic Church in general is, you
are born a sinner and you are born bad and you immediate--you sin and you
immediately need to be saved and you sin and you sin and you sin and you need to
get in here-- Well Tony, hang on--we're--okay so we're--
just because we're going around a little bit, so the question is about the
doctrine of Original Sin or about the doctrine that we need Confession? Which--
would you like-- That we're sinners. It's just so assumed, and then, why do I have to go to
Confession? Okay, there's a great question. All right yeah so Tony, you've brought up
a couple of issues here. First of all, brother, just very briefly, when you
stated that we're born sinners, perhaps you might be misunderstanding exactly
what the Church means when she teaches the dogma of Original Sin. The Church
does not teach that we're born with the personal guilt of sin;
when the Church teaches that we're born in the state of Original Sin, what she
means is that we're born void of God's supernatural life, which is a gift that
we would have received had our first parents not forfeited that gift through
their Original Sin against God, as recounted to us in the book of Genesis
in Genesis chapter 3. So that condition of the soul, void of God's grace, void of
God's life that's necessary for Heaven; that's what's removed in the Sacrament
of Baptism. This is the good news of Baptism, Tony, that Jesus Christ who is
God made flesh came and gave us the Sacrament of Baptism through which we
received the gift of God's life in order to exist forever in a perfect life of
knowledge and love. That's the good news of Jesus and the gift of salvation given
to us in Baptism. Now concerning confession, Tony, it's very simple in one
way, brother; the only reason why we employ and use the Sacrament of
Confession is because Jesus says so. It presupposes that Jesus is God, first of
all--so if you don't believe that then we're gonna have to back up a little bit
and do some leg work on that--but let's assume that we both agree Jesus is God,
he's the fullness of God's revelation, and so the question is: does Jesus reveal
to us what we understand as Catholics in the Sacrament of Confession, or
reconciliation? The answer is yes, Tony, all you gotta do, pull out your Bible,
brother; in John 20:23, Jesus says to the Apostles--He breathes
on them and gives them the Holy Spirit-- and says, "Whosoever's sins you shall
forgive, they are forgiven," and He doesn't say, "Whoever's sins you declare forgiven are
forgiven;" no, He says, "Whosoever's sins you forgive, they are forgiven, and whosoever's
sins you retain, they are retained," which implies, Tony, that the Apostles have the
authority delegated to them to make a judgment whether to forgive or to retain
based upon the contrition or the sorrow of those who approach them confessing
their sins. So we have it directly from Jesus Christ Himself, and we see the
Apostles practice this; in James chapter 5 we read about--James tells us how
there are some who are sick, they go to the presbyters, or the priests, who
are successors of the Apostles, and they're anointed with oil, and James
tells us, in James 5:14-16: "If any of them have sins, they will be forgiven."
So we see that the Sacrament of Confession is a gift given to us by
Jesus Himself.