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...from the attached "The Conversation" article...
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Procuring abortion, as canon lawyer Edwin Peters makes clear, is treated as both a sin and a crime under Catholic legal codes. As a sin, procuring an abortion must be confessed to a priest.

But as a crime, procured abortion carries with it the penalty of “latae sententiae excommunication”: that is, automatic expulsion from the Catholic Church. Only sins that are also crimes incur automatic excommunication, although one can be excommunicated through a formal process for other reasons – something that is very rarely done nowadays.

The fact that procuring an abortion is both a sin and a crime places those wanting to confess in a peculiar bind: They cannot be absolved of the sin without confessing before a priest. However, since they have been automatically excommunicated, they are denied access to the absolution of sins granted in the confessional.

Normally, it is only within the power of the bishop to remove the penalty of excommunication. So someone wishing to be absolved of the sin of procuring an abortion would first need to have the penalty of excommunication lifted by the bishop before confessing to a priest.

In 2009, for example, the family of a nine-year-old girl in Brazil who had an abortion after having been raped by her stepfather was excommunicated by the local bishop, as were the doctors who performed the procedure. While the bishop’s decision brought a huge backlash among rank-and-file Catholics, it was formally consistent with the letter – if not the spirit – of Church law.

What will change?

What Pope Francis is doing is allowing priests to simultaneously lift the penalty of excommunication and absolving someone who confesses to procuring an abortion. In other words, the intervention of the local bishop is no longer necessary.

In many parts of the Catholic world, the pope’s decision actually does not change anything. For example, in most American dioceses priests already have the permission to do exactly what Pope Francis is allowing: to lift the penalty of excommunication and absolve the sin of procuring abortion.

So, perhaps the most relevant questions are, “Why is Pope Francis doing this now and what difference does it make?”

On one level, Pope Francis is extending a practice that has now become common in many places and making it universal throughout the Catholic Church: not all Catholic dioceses or bishops allow their priests to lift excommunication along with absolving the sin of procured abortion. As the 2009 Brazilian case makes clear, that authority is not in place in many dioceses.
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Another way of looking at this is to recall the term "Prudential Judgement" and see it being used by local Pastors, who know their "Flock"...and the particular circumstances they (e.g. innocent women) are confronted with. It's still a "Sin"...as is Killing in the case of "Just Wars"...but not grounds for Excommunication.

Let's all discuss this situation rationally and peacefully...with the goal of everyone finding effective ways of reducing (as much as possible) the occurrences of "Unwanted Pregnancies" and thereby Abortions.


Link: https://theconversation.com/what-changes-when-pope-francis-grants-all-priests-the-authority-to-forgive-abortions-69330