Asking God to forgive others

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MarkSmale

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Dear whoever

Is it alright to ask the Lord to forgive other people for specific sins? These are not one’s own sins of commission or omission; they are other people’s.

Thank you,
Mark S
 
Welcome to the forums 🙂

Well, Jesus did this—“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34)—so I imagine we can, and should, also.
 
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Yes, absolutely! There are many Saints who spent their lives doing penance for the sins of others.
 
Jesus forgave the man’s sins becasue of the faith of Jo’s friends.

Luke
And some men brought on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed; they were trying to bring him in and set [him] in his presence. But not finding a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the tiles into the middle in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, “As for you, your sins are forgiven
 
Yes, we should definitely intercede for each other.

I’m assuming, however, you’re not being prideful (“Dear Jesus, please forgive that stupid jerk over there. He’s just the worst.”)
 
Yes you most certainly can! Christ did it on the cross. It is good to pray for each other.
 
You can ask God to forgive them and have mercy on them. You can also ask him to please give them the grace they need to repent and stop sinning. And you can ask Mary, St. Joseph, other saints to pray for them.

You doing all this asking does NOT take the place of the person actually having to make the choice to repent of his own accord, but it can certainly help. Jesus prayed “Father forgive them,” and many saints and martyrs have done the exact same thing, imitating Jesus.
 
Yes this is part of Christian Tradition from the very beginning of the Church.

No, it does not override free will or the need for repentance. You are praying for God’s grace to be at work in their life and this is something we should all be doing for each other. If we pray for our material needs then it is infinitely more important to pray for our spiritual needs.
 
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UpUpAndAway said:
Well, Jesus did this—“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34)—so I imagine we can, and should, also.
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I feel Acts 7:60 is an even better example, as unlike with Jesus, the requester was a normal human like you or me.
 
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Jesus called on forgiveness for those who were killing him, Maybe we should follow his example.
 
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