2. When I was a Roman Catholic priest, one of my chief duties was to hear confessions. It is not a pleasant duty, I can assure you, but it was always a pleasure to me to work for the good-natured Irish peasantry. Well, the chief argument in support of Confession is taken from the 20th chapter of St. John’s Gospel and the 23rd verse—“Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.” Now, to understand the point of my argument, you must read in your Douay Testament from verse 19. Then turn back to the 24th chapter of St. Luke, and commence at the 33rd verse. Both Evangelists narrate exactly the same incident; for in both he said, “Peace be to you,” and “He showed them His hands and His side.” But what do we find? In St. John, verse 19, we find that it was the “Disciples,” not the eleven Apostles only, who “were gathered together for fear of the Jews.” In St. Luke, verse 33, we find that it was “the eleven” “and those that were with them” whom Jesus addressed. Thence it follows that not alone did Jesus give to the eleven Apostles the power of forgiving sins, but He gave it to “those who were with them”—to the whole company of the “Disciples,” and among that company there were certainly some women. Therefore Christ gave power to women to remit sins in the Confessional. It follows as a necessary consequence; and I hope you will ask one of your priests to solve the difficulty for you. My friends, you will find nowhere in the New Testament a record of any of the Apostles having remitted sins in the Confessional. They remitted them, no doubt, by preaching the Gospel of Christ. They bound and loosed, as you may see (Acts xv. 28, 29); but there is no record of their having set up the Confessional. In the 16th chapter of the Acts, when the terrified keeper of the prison fell down at the feet of Paul and Silas, saying, “Masters, what must I do that I may be saved?” we do not read that Paul took out his stole, and asked him to make his confession. On the contrary, he said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” Indeed, it can be conclusively proved from history that private confession was introduced by Leo I. in the fifth century. Public confession always existed. St. James inculcates it (chap. v. 16), where he says, “Confess therefore your sins one to another,” showing that the priest is just as much bound to confess his sins to you as you are to the priest.