I just read an article that the Pope had extended forgiveness for the sin of abortion, through confession, only to those in Madrid during World Youth Day.
There are a lot of errors wrapped up just in this sentence alone. Let me see if I can help.
Abortion, as you might guess, is a sin, just like robbery, gossiping, and anything else. Priests always have the authority to forgive sins when faced with a contrite penitent.
Certain sins, however,
also carry excommunication. Excommunication is an
ecclesiastical penalty; it is not a “higher grade of sin” or a judgment that you are “on the outs with God” or anything like that. The very sinfulness of the action itself puts you on the outs with God. Only a small number of sins carry the penalty of excommunication, and these are mostly ones that strike at the unity of the Church itself: schism, laying violent hands on the pope, violating the seal of the confessional, consecrating bishops without a papal mandate, the simulated ordination of women, and so on. Excommunication, which among other things deprives the subject of all the sacraments, is intended both to underscore the severity of the offense and deter its commission, and also as a corrective measure to bring people to repentance. Excommunication as a penalty for the abortion of a quickened child is recorded at least since the reign of Gregory XIV (died 1591). In 1869 Pius IX extended this to all abortions. As the Catechism explains (¶ 2272), by excommunication “[t]he Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy. Rather, she makes clear the gravity of the crime committed, the irreparable harm done to the innocent who is put to death, as well as to the parents and the whole of society.”
Now, some excommunications can only be lifted by the Holy See itself, such as the excommunication incurred by illegitimately consecrating a bishop. Others, such as the excommunication for abortion, fall under the authority of your bishop. If you confess an excommunicable offense to a priest, then that priest will, while preserving your anonymity, go to the bishop and obtain the lifting of the excommunication for you. Obviously, if it is for something like schism, you will probably have to end the schism first; you can’t just say “Well, my bad.”
In the United States, most if not all bishops have delegated to all their priests the authority to lift the excommunication for abortion. Bishops can do this. That is why if you live in the U.S. you have never heard of “special permission” being given to forgive abortions, because priests already have the authority to lift these excommunications (and they always have the authority to
forgive the sin itself). In Spain, apparently, the bishops have
not delegated this power, so under normal circumstances the lifting of the excommunication must proceed under the normal system up to the bishop himself. What is being reported here is that the Archbishop of Madrid has decided to delegate this power to the priests at World Youth Day for the duration of the gathering.
So when you say that you read that “the Pope has extended forgiveness for abortion, through confession, only to those in Madrid during World Youth Day,” it’s wrong on a lot of counts. First, the pope has nothing to do with it at all. It’s a decision of the Archbishop of Madrid. Second, the issues of “forgiveness” and “excommunication” are two very separate questions. Priest can always absolve the sin, but in Spain they usually cannot lift the excommunication without going through their bishop. Third, it is not just “only to those in Madrid.” If you live in the U.S. – and probably other countries, though I’ve never looked into it – then your priest already has the authority to do this.
So, the moral of this story is that you should never get your info on any kind of ecclesiastical topic from the news. Not once in my life have I seen them get
anything completely right.
