As a priest in the Episcopal Church I can say that offering absolution for sins is not about the priest doing that work, but instead declaring that absolution has already happened. If anything, it’s a reminder. The Roman Catholic theology might be different on this, though.

I’m the sort of person that benefits from an actual voice telling me things like “your sins are forgiven.” I grew up Baptist/Evangelical and was told I did not need a priest or minister to forgive me of my sins, that Jesus was the only one who could do that. Sure. But that was so abstract. Once I first sat in an Episcopal parish and had a priest say “Almighty God have mercy on you and forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ…” was powerful. It took the idea of my forgiveness out of the abstract. Like, I knew it was not the priest forgiving me, but was someone openly reminding me that my sins had been forgiven.

I’m now a universalist and I believe that everyone’s sins are already forgiven (when Jesus says “father forgive them, they know not what they do” on the cross pretty much covers it), but that we fail to accept that forgiveness and so rob ourselves of the kind of liberation that comes from that knowledge. I need the church to remind me, on a regular basis, that I’ve been forgiven because it’s easy for me to slip into a pattern of beating myself up for my failures and short-comings. But once I remember I’m forgiven by God I feel the grace that empowers me to try to be better.