ignifies a priest in the Roman Catholic church who hears confessions and grants 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 Henri IV., have, with rare exceptions, been 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.