The pope's abortion declaration

Last Tuesday, Pope Francis gave permission to all priests everywhere, for one year starting this December, to pardon all women who have had abortions.

I wonder how women feel about this. I wonder how God feels about this.

First the women: At first blush, one would think the Catholic feminists would be happy: “Wow, free forgiveness for 365 days!” That’s a better offer than the zero percent financing for 72 months I heard about on a new Volkswagen.

But wait. Abortion is not wrong—the Supreme Court says so. So if something is not wrong, why should I want forgiveness for it? Why should I need forgiveness for it? In fact, to offer forgiveness is an insult! The pope has just insulted the recipients of more than a million abortions a year in the United States by implying that abortion is an act that has something wrong with it, something that needs to be forgiven.

Second, God: The pope’s decree confers authority to forgive abortions to priests (technically, only bishops could forgive abortion before this decision). But when did God ever say that a woman must hunt down a bishop or other frocked official in order to be forgiven for an abortion, or for any of her sins? Who made the pope God’s dean of admissions? If a woman cannot find a bishop (and now a priest, for this Year of Mercy window of opportunity) to tell her sins to, is she without remedy? May she not go directly to God? In fact, is there not a danger lurking in the pope’s decree that women will grab onto the limited-time-only absolution like a kind of fire sale, a new variant of the old ex opera operato automatic conferring of grace in which true personal repentance is secondary to proper process?

We may be glad if the Vatican’s abortion declaration has the result of reintroducing into American culture the old fashioned and sidelined notion that abortion is wrong. Everyone created in God’s image already knows it is wrong deep down. As proof, have you ever noticed that even the most strident abortion supporters never call abortion “good”? They will call abortion a “choice” and go so far as call it a “right,” but even Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards can’t get her mouth to spit out the word “good” when describing what happens in an abortion.

May the women who hear of Pope Francis’ declaration be stimulated to realize that abortion is not simply a neutral medical “procedure” but something needing forgiveness. May they also know that their forgiveness is not held in the arbitrary hands of a religious hierarchy but is as near to them as their very next breath.