father confessor

plural father confessors

1. CatholicismA priest who hears confession and then gives absolution.

   Synonyms: confessor

2. broadlyA person who listens to others and gives them advice on private matters; a spiritual guide.

   1 more example

   Anybody can cure a curable disease if he happens to have the right drug at hand, but the treatment of a condition for which there is no positive cure makes much greater demands on the doctor, who has to be practical pharmacologist, human being, psychiatrist, and father confessor—he has, in fact, to be a proper physician in the fullest sense of the word.

   1976 March 27, F. Dudley Hart, “History of the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis”, in British Medical Journal, volume 1, number 6012, →DOI, →JSTOR, page 763