Jim,
When I was growing up, my father was the congregation servant. I remember how he used to agonize over Committee meetings, and I have to believe that he tried his best to help people through the process. The "system" may not have been forgiving, but my father was.
Fast forward to several years after my Dad's death, and hubby and I have 3 elders in our living room. They came, supposedly, to "shepherd" us, but they ended up grilling my youngest daughter about a report that she had (OH MY) smoked A cigarette.
This young lady was 14 years old, an unbaptized publisher, and my husband was a Ministerial Servant. My daughter, who had always been taught that the purpose of elders talking to one was to HELP them, confessed and repented in tears regarding the incident. She then proceeded to answer their questions regarding some of her friends, many of whom were engaging in conduct far worse than a one-time cigarette experiment.
The end of the matter was that my daughter was removed as publisher with an announcement at the KH. My husband was removed as a Ministerial Servant for "failing to preside properly over his family" (even though the incident took place at an elder's home). None of the other young ones or their parents were punished publicly as we were. I was stunned, to say the least. This certainly was something that should have been handled privately, and could have been handled just within our family had someone made my husband and I aware of the situation before calling the inquisition. It was the beginning of my exit from the WTS (which still took many years).
Needless to say, I have a very low opinion of JW confession....
I have not yet had the privilege of participating in Catholic confession. But a good friend of mine who converted to Catholicism from an Evangelical Protestant background told me her thoughts on this. The first time she went to confess, before her confirmation in the Catholic Church, she was very nervous about it. She told the Priest that she had always believed that one should only confess to God, and wondered about the role of the Priest in the matter. The Priest told her that of course God is the only one who can forgive our sins. But he said, "Unless I give you some way to show you are really sorry, you may not be able to forgive yourself." My friend was astounded by this answer. Her first thought was, "You mean to tell me that 2,000 years ago the Church had an understanding of Basic Psychology?" The reasonableness of his answer reinforced her confidence that her decision to convert was the right one.
I know that receiving a blessing from the Priest at my first visit to a Catholic Mass was an overwhelming emotional experience. I felt I was experiencing true unconditional love for the very first time -- God's love. For my whole life, I had felt "not good enough" to please God. Now I knew that pleasing God was not a matter of MY being good enough; His grace is "good enough" to make up for my deficits.
I certainly believe that you are correct that JW confession is not about forgiveness, while the confession practiced by other Christian faiths is all about forgiveness and Living in Grace.
Ruth