Pardon women who have abortion: Pope tells priests

                             Pope Francis                         (C)TonyGentile/Reuters

“For Francis, mercy is the key to evangelisation,” said Austen Ivereigh, who has written a biography of the pope. “I think the pope is convinced that the church has lost the priority of mercy in its preaching and he is doing his utmost to restore it.”
According to a recent report, Pope Francis has opened the door for women who have had abortions – an act considered a grave sin by the Catholic church, to be absolved if they express contrition and seek forgiveness from their priest.
“The forgiveness of God cannot be denied to one who has repented,” the pontiff wrote in an extraordinary letter that was released by the Vatican on Tuesday.
“I am well aware of the pressure that has led them to this decision. I know that it is an existential and moral ordeal,” he added.
The order, which temporarily allows all priests to grant forgiveness to women who have elected to have an abortion and profoundly regret the procedure, is part of the church’s jubilee year of mercy, which begins on 8 December and runs until 20 November 2016.
Within an hour of releasing the letter, the Vatican released another statement in response to a flood of queries, emphasising that the church did not “condone abortion nor minimise its grave effects”.
The church added that the fact that the faithful already went to confession to confess their abortions and other “grave sins” was a cause to thank God and to put in practice the mission of the church to “seek out those who were lost”.
 “Pope Francis’s decision to allow priests to absolve women who have procured abortions consolidates his reputation as the ‘Pope of Mercy’ and as a master strategist in the effort to bring back lapsed Catholics into the fold,” said R Andrew Chesnut, professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University
Under canon law, women who receive abortions and doctors who perform them – or anyone involved in the procedure – are automatically excommunicated, according to Teresa Berger of the Yale University divinity school.
But, under normal circumstances, those who face excommunication can be absolved if their confessor has received special authority from a bishop to do so – an authority that not all priests have.
Pope Francis already announced earlier this year that he planned to appoint some priests with the power to forgive abortion as part of the year of mercy, but his letter on Tuesday made it clear that his approach would reach far more people than originally forecast.

Source: TheGuardian