The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts today applauded Pope Francis for his Letter on the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which extends to all Catholic priests the faculty to absolve penitents from the mortal sin of abortion, and which authorizes the priests of the Society of Saint Pius X—founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre—to validly and licitly administer the Sacrament of Penance.
As the grave sin of procuring an abortion involves the murder of the pre-born child, it has traditionally been an offense which carries the penalty of excommunication. Canon 1398 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law states: “a person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.” This has meant that absolution in the confessional was reserved to the bishop or to a priest delegated by the bishop.
As a practical matter, most bishops, on the recommendation of most episcopal conferences, have already extended that faculty to their priests. Reportedly, Cardinal Bernard Law did so some years ago in the Archdiocese of Boston. The Holy Father has now made that faculty universal.
In his Letter, Pope Francis called abortion “profoundly unjust,” and said “The tragedy of abortion is experienced by some with a superficial awareness, as if not realizing the extreme harm that such an act entails.” The Pope went on to say that “The forgiveness of God cannot be denied to one who has repented…” and therefore decided “to concede to all priests for the Jubilee Year the discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness for it.”
The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council stated that “abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes,” while Pope Pius XI, in his Encyclical Casti Connubii, described abortion as the “direct murder of the innocent.”
The Catholic Action League has called the Pope’s Letter “more symbolic than substantive, but nonetheless, a welcome and appropriate gesture for a jubilee year of mercy.”
Catholic Action League Executive Director C. J. Doyle made the following comment: “For the Catholic Church, abortion has always been a grave sin, but one that could be forgiven. The early Church condemned rigorist heretics who held that penitents could not be forgiven for the sins of murder, adultery, or apostasy.”
“There is no change here in either Catholic moral prohibitions against abortion, or, effectively, in pastoral practice regarding women who have procured abortions. The Pope, it should be remembered, is referring to those seeking forgiveness through the Sacrament of Penance, which requires both sincere contrition and firm resolution of amendment.”
“The most significant part of the Pope’s Letter involves not abortion, but the unprecedented decision to extend faculties, for the Year of Mercy, to the clergy of the Society of Saint Pius X, whose status Rome has long regarded as irregular. It would seem that Pope Francis aspires to the full reconciliation of the followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre with the Holy See, which eluded Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.”
