Posted on 11/21/2016 8:37:06 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
VATICAN CITY, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Monday extended indefinitely to all Roman Catholic priests the power to forgive abortion, a right previously reserved for bishops or special confessors.
Francis, who has made a more inclusive and forgiving Roman Catholic Church a characteristic of his papacy, made the announcement in a document known as an "apostolic letter" after Sunday's close of the Church's "Holy Year of Mercy".
He said he wanted to "restate as firmly as I can that abortion is a grave sin, since it puts an end to an innocent life" but "there is no sin that God's mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with (God)"....
(Excerpt) Read more at aol.com ...
“And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.” MATTHEW 16:18
That would be “Pope” Peter to you.
I don’t want to go into too much detail....but technically it was a reserved sin that only a bishop can forgive. But over the years its been ignored and priests just did it anyway
They don’t...!
If you tell a lie and it's forgiven, then somewhere down the road you tell another lie it's not forgiven??
The pope cannot forgive and neither can priests and neither can the pope confer this on priests. This is sheer lunacy. Want forgivness? Ask God. It’s that simple. You don’t need a middle man and besides, they don’t have any power to act on God’s behalf.
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While he’s at it, he can extend his right to a beach front home on the shore of the Lake of Fire to all of them.
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You would be very surprised then to find out that the pro-life movement is filled with women who have had abortions. Or that the many crisis pregnancy centers around the country have on their staffs women who have had abortions and are now working to keep that from happening to other women & unborn babies. Or that these centers have programs to help women, girls, and the husbands and boyfriends who have experienced or participated in the deaths of their children deal with their guilt and seek God's forgiveness. It is not a small thing to participate in the death of ones child. The conscience that God gives each of us does not disappear when one has an abortion. It may be hardened. There are indeed women who are cruel and heartless. They see their unborn children as garbage to be thrown away. But most women and girls know that what they are doing is wrong. That the life within them does not become a human life only if they want it. The pope's concept of forgiveness from abortion is Biblical. God forgives even that. But as for a priest being able to dispense forgiveness? That is the work of God alone.
That’s right...
The pope is an idiot.
Abortion is premeditated MURDER.
MURDER is one of the very worst sins that can be committed.
Francis should just hand out keys to heaven and shortcut the penance part.
Indulgences?
That is HOW I live my life, everyone has the opportunity to live however they want...
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10)
NOWHERE does the Bible show that the meaning of 'Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained" (John 20:23) and "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 18:18) - and which is illustrated in cases of church discipline, and in which all the church is involved (1Co. 5:1-5; 2Co. 2:1-10) and special cases of intercession (Ja. 5:14,15) - is that this means believers must regularly go the the pastors (and never to a distinctively titled priests ) to be forgiven.
The ONLY place where believers are told to engage in a practice of regularly confessing sins is toward each other, and holy believers of Elijah-type fervent faith are provided the binding and loosing power, which Elijah showed in binding the heavens from raining, and loosing them.
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins. (James 5:16-20)
Thus the pope and those who presume otherwise need to be forgiven.
Nonsense, You need to read and believe bible and know what it says. . The only sin that is said to be unforgivable is blasphemy of the Spirit which in context is that of attributing the work of Christ to the devil in order to justify their rejection of Him despite great evidence being set before them (like as Heb. 6:43-8 describes) - indicating reprobation.
That is not even RC teaching (CCC 982), let alone that of Scripture.
For at least the past 30 years, bishops in the United States have granted to their priests the power to lift the automatic penalty of excommunication attached to procuring an abortion.
A key point - lost in some of the reporting - is that Catholic priests anywhere in the world already have the power to forgive the sin of abortion. The penitent walks out of the confessional forgiven and reunited to God’s grace.
The issue here is not the sin itself, but the excommunication, and who can lift it. In the Code of Canon Law that power is reserved to a bishop - unless, as in the United States, he has chosen to extend this authority to his priests.
In parts of the world where that power had not been granted, the priest would have forgiven the repentant sinner immediately and then have asked the penitent to return at a later time; during that interval the confessor would have secured his bishop’s permission to lift the canonical penalty. (Anonymity, of course, would have been honored, with the identity of the penitent never disclosed.) https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/10/12/why-werent-all-priests-able-to-absolve-from-the-sin-of-abortion-already/
And Biblically murderers like Paul (complicit) were forgiven without Catholic priests (which did not exist in the NT church ).
See above posts (daniel1212) by the grace of God. Some Catholics do not know (or care) what Scripture says, and some are even ignorant of what their (heretical ) church teaches.
Catholic ping!
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