A Catholic Gent

I’m so thankful that you’ve given me this opportunity to shed this light on your opinion for you, sir! So anyway, No Catholic believes a priest replaces Jesus. That is a straw man. Christ alone is the Savior, but the same Christ said to the apostles, ‘Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them’ (John 20:23). So the real question is not whether man can replace Jesus. He cannot. The question is whether Jesus can use human ministers. Scripture says yes. 1. False dilemma. Your argument pretends there are only two options: either Jesus forgives sins directly, or a priest replaces Him. Catholicism teaches neither rivalry nor replacement. Christ alone forgives; the priest is His instrument. 2. John 14:6 does not disprove Confession. It supports it. “No one comes to the Father except through Me” means every act of grace comes through Christ. In Confession, Catholics do not go around Jesus to reach a priest. They go to Jesus through the sacrament Jesus gave His Church. 3. Jesus explicitly gave the apostles authority over sins. In John 20:22–23, the risen Christ says: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” That is not a man stealing Christ’s role. That is Christ delegating His authority. 4. A priest does not take Jesus’ place the way the objection claims. A priest is not a second redeemer. He did not die for your sins. He does not invent forgiveness. He applies Christ’s forgiveness as a minister acting in Christ’s name. 5. Scripture is full of Christ working through human beings. By this anti-Catholic logic, no one should preach, baptize, pastor, or teach either. But Jesus sends men to do all of those things. Christ uses human instruments without being displaced by them. 6. The Bible itself uses representative authority. St. Paul says, “We are ambassadors for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:20). An ambassador does not replace the king; he speaks with the king’s authority because he was sent. That is how Catholic priests function in sacramental ministry. 7. The objection confuses “source” with “instrument.” Jesus is the source of forgiveness. The priest is the instrument. Those are not the same thing. Saying “only Jesus saves” is true. But it does not mean Jesus cannot use means He Himself established. 8. Confession actually magnifies Christ’s authority. The sacrament does not glorify man. It glorifies the power of Christ, who not only forgives sin, but gave His Church authority to proclaim and apply that forgiveness visibly and sacramentally. 9. The priest’s words are Christ-centered, not priest-centered. The priest says, “I absolve you… in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The whole act is explicitly rooted in God’s authority, not the priest’s private power. 10. Candidly, Your objection sounds pious, but it collapses under Scripture. Catholics do not put a man in Jesus’ place. We believe Jesus, who alone saves, chose to forgive through the ministry He Himself established. Rejecting Confession is not defending Christ’s authority. It is denying the authority Christ gave.

Ben Shapiro needs to stop operating in Candace’s frame because he is giving her what she wants