"Confess your sins to one another"
Does your priest confess his sins to you?
Discussion
In the early days of Christianity, we actually did; Mass would not start ca. 1st Century without the entirety of the community confessing sins; the priest would offer absolution, and on the Mass went.
Obvious problem with that: Molly might hold a grudge against Mary for emptying her slop bucket on her stoop. Community resentment ran pretty high, as you can imagine. So the Irish engineered a private penitential system, one at a time, with a priest (who represents the community). The priest in turn then went to another priest in the community for confession, and this is the system we have today.
I recently read about the "confession at church thing", it's a very interesting idea. Our reformed church community is big on confession, but given the "priesthood of all believers" it makes it easy to maintain privacy and also cover reconciliation while you're at it.
The issue, though, is that this necessitates an essential equality of roles between individuals within the Body of Christ. Some are hands, others feet. Some are diakonoi, some presbyteroi, and some episkopoi (deacons, priests, and bishops), while others have no official ecclesial position, whom we call laity.
It is evidenced in both scripture and post-Scriptural early Church history that these roles are distinct and have differing responsibilities and authorities. Christ gave His chosen twelve the authority to forgive and retain sins (John 20), but not the broader group of followers. One may argue that "disciples" is ambiguous as to which ones (broader followers or the chosen twelve), but it is clarified in that the later passages of scripture do speak of confession in the context priestly duties, not general.
Further, the word in James 5 often translated "elders" is "πρεσβυτέρους," or "presbyteros", and so implies the confession in the following verses is to a priest (verses 13-18 has about enough context). In fact, the Douay-Rheims does translate it "priests."
I also should point out 2 Cor 2:10 and 2 Cor 5:18-20 which say that Christ reconciles "through us," meaning the "ambassadors for Christ," or those Christ sent, aka Apostles. Ministries need ministers, who "in the person of Christ" reconcile others to Him. We can see from the above passages that the power to forgive is not only with the Apostles* alone but also extends to the priests (presbyters).
Finally, one who carefully examines these still may find a very fine ambiguity about whether the power to forgive extends beyond priests, but positive confirmation of such is entirely lacking, including any inexplicit implied, neither to deacons nor laity, and post-Scripture Church history shows that they did not believe so.
Josh is right that it was initially a public thing, usually at the beginning of worship. I didn't know the origin of private confession, so that's interesting.
* The Apostles are the first bishops, see Act 1:20, "office" of an Apostle is referred to as ἐπισκοπὴν (episkopon), or bishopric.
Matthew 16:18 notwithstanding (admittedly a difficult verse for me, and the one on which a whole lot of this hinges), the protestant position seems more coherent to me. There are lots of things about your argument that aren't compelling to me:
- πρεσβυτέρους doesn't seem to me to be identified with "eachother" in the James passage, I'm not sure the interpretation of the word is relevant here.
- I definitely affirm the difference of roles. But "normal" confession is necessary for relationships of any kind to function. Catholics are positing that confession to God needs to be mediated, and fair enough, but James 5 doesn't say "through eachother" but "to eachother". But maybe this means James isn't relevant to the discussion at all.
- 2 Cor 5 says God has reconciled himself to us through Christ, and we're given the word of reconciliation — i.e., we're supposed to tell other people that they also may be directly reconciled to God through Christ.
It’s really John 20:22-23 that cinched it for me years ago (outside of studying the history of Christianity, when I was baptized but essentially atheist). The ability to forgive and retain sins via apostolic succession prior to the Ascension is a pretty good indicator of precisely what these men went forth and did, and what they assigned their bishops (and later priests) to do as well.
The to-through distinction I think is unnecessary for the James 5 passage. The reason I bring up James 5 is to show how the power to forgive is extended to priests and not only relegated to the bishops, since the letter addresses the priests and is not a private letter between apostles. The choices at that point is either Jesus granted the power to forgive or retain to the apostles only, or such power can be delegated to priests under the apostles (and their successors).
On 2 Cor 5, I'll have to look up the various texts again, but I'm pretty sure "word of reconciliation" is a poor translation. The translations I've used said "ministry," not "word." Ministries require ministers, and so who might administer said process of reconciliation?