{"id":5115,"date":"2015-09-03T16:46:27","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T20:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/?p=5115"},"modified":"2015-09-04T04:10:26","modified_gmt":"2015-09-04T08:10:26","slug":"uk-guardian-pro-lifers-hate-francismercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=5115","title":{"rendered":"UK Guardian: Pro-Lifers Hate FrancisMercy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Feeling<\/a>

Feeling the New Mercy<\/p><\/div>\n

At the UK Guardian Anthea Butler provides a great example of the whole point<\/a> behind the new abortion FrancisMercy.<\/p>\n

P<\/span><\/span>ope Francis\u2019s pastoral letter for the Year of Mercy<\/a>, indicating that priests may<\/a> absolve those who procure abortions, does nothing to change Catholic church policy with regards to how abortion is viewed. Current canonical law states that abortion is a grave sin, resulting in \u201cautomatic<\/a>\u201d excommunication.<\/p>\n

It also doesn\u2019t change very much when it comes to the mechanics of sin and forgiveness in the Catholic Church. Current teachings state that bishops could give priests the right to forgive a woman for having an an abortion if she was truly penitent; for this year, priests do not specifically have to ask a bishop for the right to absolve anyone seeking forgiveness for assisting an abortion or having one. (And Pope John Paul II gave priests the same term-limited right in the year 2000<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

What the Pope did was make a deft statement on the eve of his first visit to Cuba and the United States \u2013 a very Jesuitical move from the Jesuit pontiff. It presents to the public and press a more forgiving, more open church, which needs all the good PR feelings it can muster.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So far, so good.<\/p>\n

In a letter outlining the preparations for the Year of Mercy beginning on 8 December 2015, the pope stated he is \u201cconceding to all priests for the Jubilee year the discretion to absolve the sin of abortion to those who have procured it\u201d.<\/p>\n

While the edict is not a change in canon law, it does give a pathway to forgiveness for what the church terms \u201ca grave sin\u201d. Once a person is absolved, then they are back in \u201cgood standing\u2019 with the Catholic church, and are able to partake of the sacrament of the Eucharist and be accepted into heaven.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not so sure about this ‘new pathway’ she’s talking about, but it’s great to hear a big secular paper actually explain Confession, Holy Communion, and forgiveness in our Faith.<\/p>\n

But wait:<\/p>\n

The move to offer absolution to women who had abortions is likely to rankle conservatives who have found themselves embattled with this pope, who hews closely to Catholic church teachings but still makes comments like \u201cwho am I to judge\u201d with regards to homosexuality and calls upon Church leaders to get active on climate change.<\/p>\n

The letter particularly puts the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops once again in the interesting position of having to support the pope, even though many of them are staunch anti-abortion advocates who may not have wished to extend \u2013 or even forbidden the extension of \u2013 forgiveness to those women who have sought it regarding abortions. Many of those bishops have been eager to fight the culture wars surrounding abortion rights in the United States; this announcement reduces their bluster substantively.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

They were doing so well, weren’t they?\u00a0 They were talking about the Church and not making things up.\u00a0 Pro-life faithful bishops don’t want forgiveness for abortions!\u00a0 Now we have to silence the culture war?<\/p>\n

Just when we thought maybe the secular left would start to understand Christ’s mercy, we find out they only get FrancisMercy.\u00a0 FrancisMercy is only for liberals.<\/p>\n

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At the UK Guardian Anthea Butler provides a great example of the whole point behind the new abortion FrancisMercy. Pope Francis\u2019s pastoral letter for the Year of Mercy, indicating that priests may absolve those who procure abortions, does nothing to change Catholic church policy with regards to how abortion is viewed. Current canonical law states …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[282,428,365,660,530,649],"class_list":["post-5115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortion","tag-confession","tag-conservatives","tag-forgiveness","tag-francis","tag-jubilee"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5115"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5169,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5115\/revisions\/5169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}