So that all may understand what Pope Francis is reported to have done for the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, here is the current practice in the Church.  

Abortion that is deliberately procured (in other words: asked for by a woman who knows that it is gravely wrong and that it can get her separated from the life of the Church) or that is deliberately performed on another results in "excommunication latae sententiae"...an archaic way of saying: By your thoughtless and heartless act, you have separated yourself from the Body of Christ. Nobody did this to you. You did it to yourself.  

That is how seriously the Church takes the UNJUST AND EVIL TERMINATION of human life.

Of course the Church understands the difficulty that women sometimes find themselves in....but no difficulty is ever so that it can justify terminating life in the womb.

It is a RESERVED SIN...which means that it takes a bishop to absolve it in the Sacrament of Penance.  

In actual practice, bishops will grant some, if not all of their priests, the "faculties" (read: powers) to forgive these sins in his behalf.  

During the Jubilee Year of Mercy, it seems that Pope Francis is minded on granting the faculty to all priests.  

Does this make abortion any more benign? IT CAN NEVER BE BENIGN...and that is why Pope Francis' gesture means a lot.

It confronts the horror of the sin of abortion with the available mercy of God through the sacrament of penance, that can now, for such sins, be administered through the ministry of a priest, the minister of the church.

 

So far from saying that abortion is not as bad as it has been made of, by the Church, Pope Francis is actually saying: SEE HOW GREAT THE MERCY OF GOD IS THAT SUCH A HORRIBLE THING AS ABORTION FINDS FORGIVENESS IN HIS GENTLE HEART when one of course is truly penitent.
 

 

Fr. Ranhilio Callangan Aquino is the dean of the San Beda Graduate School of Law.

 

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of this website.