Posted on 01/28/2019 6:43:02 PM PST by ebb tide
Pope Francis boards the plane at Tocumen International Airport after attending World Youth Day in Panama City Jan. 27, 2019
Photo: CNS photo/Carlos Jasso, Reuters
Women must be offered assistance to overcome the trauma of abortion including a spiritual reconciliation with the child who was terminated, Pope Francis told journalists on board the plane back from Panama.
In a dramatic and compassionate set of remarks on one of the Church’s most emotive topics, Francis explained how he advises women who are “desperate” following abortions to sing a lullaby to their child in heaven.
“They need to rejoin their child,” the Pope told reporters during his in-flight press conference on 27 January.
“I always advise (women), when they call and are desperate, I tell them their child is in heaven, talk to him, I tell them to sing them a lullaby, the lullaby that they had never been able to sing. Here they find a path for reconciliation, between mother and child, with the forgiveness of God. God is all forgiving. Mercy also means helping the woman live through this trauma.”
His remarks underline how this pontificate has shaped a new pastoral strategy for responding to abortion rejecting condemnatory attitudes and embracing a gentle, forgiving approach to those women who have had terminations.
On the one hand, the Pope has retained the Church’s long-held unequivocal opposition to abortion which he once described as like “hiring a hitman,” but he’s also amended rules to make it easier for priests to forgive women who have had abortions in the confessional.
Francis’ tender response to the suffering of women who have undergone abortions contrasts with attempts to weaponise the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of life for political ends.
It is also a sign of the Pope taking a step back from the culture wars in places such as the United States, in which abortion plays a central part in a battle between political factions.
Rather than seeing abortion in the abstract, the 82-year-old Jesuit Pope told journalists coming back from Panama, that “you need to be in the confessional” to understand the issue.
“There you find yourself in the position of having to console,” Francis said.
And he explained that his decision to amend rules to allow priests to forgive abortions was aimed at helping to console “through mercy.”
Francis said the issue of abortion was both about “forgiving” but also “helping, accompanying the woman who understands and is aware of what she has done by aborting.”
He stressed “the message of mercy is for everyone, also for the human being that is the developing child. It is for everyone,” the Pope told reporters, adding that abortions are “terrible traumas.”
Early on his pontificate, the Pope said the Church cannot “insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods.”
He explained: “when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”
Pope Francis The Catholic Church Abortion papal plane
I tell them their child is in heaven, talk to him, I tell them to sing them a lullaby, the lullaby that they had never been able to sing'
Absolute despical advice for mothers who murder their own children.
He tells priests who bugger altar boys the same thing.
The church was lost at the very moment moral relativism took hold. Much like our broader society, in fact.
No, you don’t send your baby straight to Heaven by murdering it.
No word from Frankie on how the act of abortion done to the baby is evil.
I am so tired.
Auto-correct gotcha. We all know you meant despicable. And that it is.
“They need to rejoin their child”
Kinda harsh Frank.
Trying to make these murderer-mothers and other sinners think their sins aren’t so bad after all.
One would think this is out of the Onion. How out of touch is this church?
agreed! Pastoral care - yes! But this approach is revolting in its essential immorality , imho
Well, it depends what you mean by "church", or Church: the theology is certainly not lost; not all the faithful are lost, a few good clerics remain, too. But Apostolic Succession seems to have been broken.
The Pope is out of touch with the Church it would seem
Rachel’s Vinyard has been active for at least twenty years
Thanks for the correction.
This Pope sucks. He always sucks.
Not an RC. Always been impressed with massive strength of Latin Christianity. This is both a gross violation of the RC Church’s own stated doctrine and it would be ludicrous if it were not so important. Well, the phrase ‘There will always be an England’ appears to more and more be a statement related to geographic identity, the Roman Church seems to be on the same path of institutional collapse and historical irrelevancy. These are not good things with Islam on the march.
An aborted child has not yet had time to sin, either by knowledge/choice or force.
The price that Christ paid for those who could not make that decision was His Choice.
I for one, would not want to have to explain to the Savior why His sacrifice was not enough for the souls of the aborted children or other innocents.
I had to check if this was satire. This man is on his way DOWN.
Women call you about their abortions? Really? How often does that happen?
Because the aborted baby has not had the opportunity to exercise free will, or to believe or not believe, is the precise reason why he or she can’t go directly to heaven.
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