I do believe that the Church has a “treasury of merit” that can be used to loose people from the effects of their sin. Don’t you? There are many edifices built on that treasury, eg indulgences, purgatory, the meaning of suffering. If I wanted to be vexatious I would have asked if Jesus had his fngers crossed when he said “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Repentance is the preferred path to a holy life, but sometimes it is the love of others that guides people on the path to Christ. Sometimes it is the love of the Church, reaching out with forgiving mercy, that starts someone on the path to repentence.