@anasazi,
Should be verse 23: NIV: If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

King james version: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained

...... may be i interpret the bible wrongly, I still feel it is not right to confess to the priest.... my interpretation (may be it is a selfish one to suit myself but it makes sense) is that whomever you forgive (if they have wronged you) shall be forgiven.... as in, in this case, it talks to those offended not the priests. Just like in Our Lords Prayer "forgive us our sins as WE FORGIVE those who trespass AGAINST US).... If you forgive those who have wronged you, they are forgiven in heaven... if you dont, they are not forgiven... not the priests to forgive us....... my thinking

by the way, am catholic... but since high school, this bit of confession to the priest stopped making sense to me so i stopped going for confessions... i ask for forgiveness directly from God....

WARNING please do not follow my way, i could be totally lost..... You know what the bible says about anyone who looses any of His sheep. Am not ready to face it.

Have you not known, have you not heard? Protestantism is dead! Its finished, kaput, kabisa! And there is none but the Society of Jesus to thank for that.

Look, all the 'prostestants' are falling over themselves, some in a most comical fashion, trooping back to mater ekklesia.

sample:
a) Anglicans have remodeled their church in London to be like the one in Rome.
b) Lutherans have offered copious apologies for Martin Luthers' less-than-polite indiscretions.
c) etc

So there is no protestant church, save one 'sect' (for that is what it is called nowadays) in the true sense of the word 'protestant'. And that 'sect' is the final loose end left for the Society of Jesus to tie up. More on that later.

So it is hardly surprising that there is no difference between 'protestants' and Catholics. There should be not, after all, 'we define that the Holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world.' The Most Holy Councils. Vol 3 col 1167.

Anyway, back to Opus Dei, that lady is a prime example of what good Catholics should be. After internalising the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, all Catholics should be exactly like that, serving the Successor of Peter, perinde ac cadavre . In the manner of a corpse.

Those who mentioned 'brainwashing' or lack of brains thereof, were on to something they were not even aware of.

If one is a catholic and has not got to that stage, then one is obviously failing in his faith. Maybe one should attend the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome if Strathmore university is not hacking it so that one can '.. serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the cross and to serve the lord alone and the church his spouse, under the Roman pontiff, the vicar of christ on earth' - Apostolic Letter Exposcit Debitum 21 July 1550.

otienosmall, you are suffering from selective amnesia in dispensing your views:

Following his 14th birthday in 1941, Ratzinger was conscripted into the Hitler Youth – as membership was required by law for all 14-year-old German boys after December 1939[9] – but was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings, according to his brother.[10] In 1941, one of Ratzinger's cousins, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome, was taken away by the Nazi regime and killed during the Aktion T4 campaign of Nazi eugenics.[11] In 1943, while still in seminary, he was drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps as Luftwaffenhelfer.[10] Ratzinger then trained in the German infantry.[12] As the Allied front drew closer to his post in 1945, he deserted back to his family's home in Traunstein after his unit had ceased to exist, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household.[13] As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp but was released a few months later at the end of the war in the summer of 1945.[13] He reentered the seminary, along with his brother Georg, in November of that year.

otieno, somewhere else that suits your thinking, the word of God cannot be spread by alarmists and rumour mongers like you, you only manage to polarize the world and leave a worse place!!!!