Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Essential Presents.

So I often have people, both Catholic and not Catholic,

friends and people I meet, who become friends, because that's how

whatever. People will ask me, they say, why do you have to confess your sins to a priest?

Like you Catholics, why do you have to confess your sins to a priest?

Someones Catholic, they say, hey, why do we Catholics have to confess our sins to a priest?

Why not go right to God? That's a fantastic question and that's what we're going to talk about today.

When someone says, why confess your sins to a priest? Why not go right to God?

I respond. Please, no, first thing, go right to God. Please go right to God.

You know that as we're baptized Christians, the Lord Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit

gives us direct access to the Father. Even if you find yourself in serious sin,

yes, go right to God and apologize. Like repent of your sins. Confess your sins to God.

We do that, but we also recognize that we're called to go to the priest. Why?

Because the role of the priest, the role of the priest, even the Old Testament, was a role

of intercessor or mediator. Now, Jesus Christ is the one great mediator between God and man,

but that's a very, very specific title that St. Paul was using that said that he's the one who

ultimately makes it possible for us to have full access to the Father. But we mediate on behalf of

of each other often. For example, I have Bible in my hand. I did not make this Bible up and God

didn't give it to me directly. It was communicated to me. It was given to me by someone else. So,

someone else was the mediator, right? They gave me the scripture and someone else taught me the

word of God. And so those people were mediators in a similar way. Priests, the Old Testament,

were mediators between God and man. And in the New Testament, priests serve a similar role,

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