The Pope and Abortion

EDITORIAL

(photo: L'Osservatore Romano via CNA)

Editor's Note: This editorial was updated on Sept. 21.

Two years ago this month, Pope Francis shocked pro-lifers when he said the Church had become “obsessed” with hot-button issues like abortion.

“The Church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently,” stated the Pope in an interview published by the Jesuit journal America. “We have to find a new balance,” he added, so that the Church will not lose “the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.”

The Pope’s remark didn’t square with the experience of most pro-life activists, who believe many pastors fail to raise the issue in Sunday homilies. The Holy Father’s comments were all the more striking because they also marked a break from the pontificate of his recent predecessors, especially Pope St. John Paul II, who revitalized global resistance to abortion with his groundbreaking encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life).

Since that 2013 interview, Pope Francis has generally adhered to his own distinctive approach for defending the right to life of the unborn child, and there are some lessons to be learned. While his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) explicitly condemns abortion, the faithful are more likely to hear references to Catholic teaching on this subject in the context of a sweeping denunciation of a “throwaway culture” that discards the vulnerable and inconvenient. Likewise, in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si (The Care for Our Common Home), threats to vulnerable human life are presented as the culmination of a technocratic utilitarian logic, which approaches human nature and the natural world as “something formless, completely open to manipulation” (106).

“Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion,” reads one portion of the encyclical. “How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?” asked the Pope.

In Laudato Si, the Pope seems intent on engaging, rather than indicting, his allies in the environmental movement, which has generally backed abortion rights and birth control. But many of the faithful won’t plow through a 200-page encyclical, and so the Pope has employed other strategies to share both the Church’s moral teaching on abortion and her concern for souls damaged by this grave sin.

On Sept. 1, a papal letter announced that all priests would have the authority to absolve the sin of abortion for the Year of Mercy. In his letter, Pope Francis spoke of meeting with “women who bear in their hearts the scar of this agonizing and painful decision.” Addressed to Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, the letter stated: “The forgiveness of God cannot be denied to one who has repented, especially when that person approaches the sacrament of confession with a sincere heart in order to obtain reconciliation with the Father.”

Thus, the Pope said he had “decided ... to concede to all priests for the jubilee Year [of Mercy] the discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness for it.”

The papal directive stirred considerable confusion, as most priests in the United States already have the authority to absolve the sin in confession and to lift the penalty of excommunication that is automatically applied to anyone directly involved in an abortion. Pro-life apostolates reported that some women had called, seeking confirmation that the absolution for their abortions was valid.

Canonists took the opportunity to make clear that many women who undergo an abortion are exempted from the penalty of excommunication because they were under coercion, too young or didn’t understand the gravity of their actions.

But as Church leaders and canon lawyers sought to clarify what the directive would mean for American Catholics, news headlines communicated the Pope’s underlying message to the public: “Pope to Ease Way for Forgiving ‘Sin of Abortion’ in Holy Year,” read a Newsmax headline that offered a typical treatment of the story. The news coverage not only marked the papal initiative — it reminded the public that abortion was a grave sin in the eyes of the Church and that absolution was possible for those with a “contrite heart.”

Then, a few days later, during a Sept. 4 video-link program timed for his visit to the United States and hosted by the ABC television network, Pope Francis returned to the subject of abortion. The 20/20 program featured the Holy Father engaging with young Americans who have struggled with poverty.

He spoke with one group at a Los Angeles shelter for the homeless and was introduced to Rosemary, a single mother, and her two daughters, who had just moved into their first apartment.

The young mother admitted that she was ashamed about the poor choices she had made. The Pope offered a surprising response: “I know it’s not easy being a single mother … but I tell you one thing: You’re a brave woman because you were able to bring these two daughters into the world. You could have killed them in your womb — and you respected life; you respected the life that you had in you. And God is going to reward you.”

His remarks startled the group, but it seemed to reassure Rosemary, who wept as she looked down at her daughters and saw her past choices in a new light.

Yet again, the prime-time encounter between a pope and a single mother reminded the faithful and the public that abortion is a grave sin — and that this pope of mercy will not retreat from hard truths.

His visit should offer many more chances to learn from a pastor who seeks to retain “the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel” and who does not hesitate to leave the pasture in search of the one lost sheep.

 

CNA photo