Pope Francis: Priests in Holy Year can absolve 'sin of abortion'

[age_of_aquinas]

I saw this news story today:

Pope Francis: Priests in Holy Year can absolve ‘sin of abortion’

In the article, there’s the following statement:

The church views abortion as such as grave sin that, until now, a Catholic woman who wanted to repent for an abortion could not simply go to her local parish priest. Instead, her diocese’s bishop needed to delegate a priest, expert at dealing with such confessions, to hear the woman’s confession.

Francis is making it possible for women to bypass this complicated process and confess directly to any Catholic priest, who can grant absolution if he determines the woman is contrite.

I’ve been pretty close to the pro-life movement for a long time, and I’ve never heard of special priests being delegated for this mission. Is the above a true statement? Is it only in some dioceses?

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

Certain sins carry with them the penalty of excommunication, being directly involved in an abortion is one of them. A priest needs to be delegated the authority to lift an excommunication. In most western dioceses the local bishop delegates this authority to all the priests of his diocese, but not every bishop in the world does this. The Pope can delegate this authority to any priest and, in the case of Pope Francis, he can delegate it to all priests in the world.