CONFESSION is also a priest in the Roman Catholic 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 days of Henry IV. have been constantly Jesuits; but before his time 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 later emperors have all employed Jesuits.