Excommunicable sin question

[Blackbog]

A teenage girl is raped. Afterwards, she goes to a health clinic where they give her the 72 hour pill. As an adult, she wants to become Catholic, but is now aware that abortion is an excommunicable sin. Can she now be absolved by normal means?

 

[Della]

ESimmons:

A teenage girl is raped. Afterwards, she goes to a health clinic where they give her the 72 hour pill. As an adult, she wants to become Catholic, but is now aware that abortion is an excommunicable sin. Can she now be absolved by normal means?

I won’t ask if this is a hypothetical question, but I will approach it as if it is. If she was not a baptized Christian when she had the abortion she incurred no excommunication from the Church to which she did not belong. If she wants to become a Catholic and is a baptized Christian, she will have to confess this sin before being confirmed in the Church. Unfortunately, this sin has become quite common. So, such a woman need not go to the bishop for absolution but can go to any priest for confession.

 

[Blackbog]

edit: nevermind.

thanks for the response.

 

[Della]

ESimmons:

edit: nevermind.

thanks for the response.

You’re welcome, but I sense I made a misstep somehow and offended you. If I did, I do apologize. I only wanted to relate what I know without getting into who you are asking the question for, if you are asking for a real person, or getting involved in a lengthy hypothetical argument that usually helps no one. Do you know what I mean?

 

[Blackbog]

Oh, no, I was just asking a second part of the question that I saw you already answered, so I edited it out.

Thanks again!

 

[Della]

ESimmons:

Oh, no, I was just asking a second part of the question that I saw you already answered, so I edited it out.

Thanks again!

Oh, good! And you’re welcome.

 

[Benedictus]

Della:

If she was not a baptized Christian when she had the abortion she incurred no excommunication from the Church to which she did not belong. If she wants to become a Catholic and is a baptized Christian, she will have to confess this sin before being confirmed in the Church.

If she wasn’t baptized, she won’t have to confess anything. Any and all sins she ever committed would be erased at her baptism.

If she were a baptised Christian, but not Catholic, it’s possible she would need to confess the sein. However, if she was truly unaware that there was anything wrong with taking the prescribed pills after being raped, she probably didn’t commit any sin.

It’s not clear that she had an abortion. It sounds like she was given the morning-after pill. While a dose of the morning-after pill can prevent implantation, it can also act as a simple contraceptive. Granted, it’s impossible to determine which may have actually happened in the case at hand, but it’s not clear to me that this would be considered directly procuring an abortion, as per canon 1398.

Even if it were considered abortion, and the individual were Catholic, canon 1329 says that a woman would not be excommunicated if she were under 17, ignorant of the penalty for abortion, or acted under compulsion of grave fear.

 

[puzzleannie]

A person who is not Catholic is not in communion with the Church in the first place, and therefore logically cannot be excommunicated. A 17 year old Catholic is underage and therefore not liable for excommunication. In order for there to be a grave sin the matter must be gravely wrong, the individual must know it is wrong, and the individual must decide to act anyhow. This hypothetical individual did not know abortion was sinful or that it was an offense that merits excommunication, therefore they lack one of the requirements for it to be a sin. If the person is unbaptized and later becomes Catholic and receives baptism, all actual sins, if any are taken away through baptism. If the person is baptized and later enters the Catholic church, she will make a full confession of all sins of her past life first, and for full healing and her own peace of mind, she should confess the situation and be guided by the priest. Confession cannot be done through an internet forum.