CONFESSION is also a priest, in the Romish church, who has a power to hear sinners in the sacrament of penance, and to give them absolution. The church calls him in Latin confessorius, to distinguish him from confessor, which is a name consecrated to saints. The confessors of the kings of France, from the time of Henry IV. have been constantly Jesuits: before him the Dominicans and Cordeliers shared the office between them. The confessors of the house of Austria have also, ordinarily, been Dominicans and Cordeliers; but the latter emperors have all taken Jesuits.