@Quentin @CoinOfNote Yes. Also, because we're human beings, we need confirmation by hearing responses from others. When we say, "I love you" to someone, we hope that we'll receive a similar response from the other person. If they were to say, "I don't need to tell you, do I? Don't you already know how I feel about you?", we still want to hear that response, that confirmation. Non-Catholics sometimes say to us regarding confession, "why can't you just go to God directly because he'll forgive you" but we want to hear that confirmation, the voice of God actually saying, "I absolve you of your sins." With confession, we hear exactly that in the voice of the priest, speaking with God's authority.