Vatican says World Youth Day is chance to confess abortion and rejoin church

[Lunabelle]

Pope dangles 'fruits of divine grace' to excommunicated Catholics who admit, during Madrid event, to terminations.

Hundreds of thousands of young people descending on Madrid this week for the Catholic church's World Youth Day – which features processions, group prayers and a mass with Pope Benedict XVI – are to get a "special" concession.

Church leaders have ordered that anyone confessing, during this event, to having had an abortion – a sin punishable by excommunication – will be welcomed back into the church.

"Normally, only certain priests have the power to lift such an excommunication, but the local diocese has decided to give all the priests taking confession at the event this power," said the pope's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi.




I just thought I'd throw a little controversial post out there and see what I could get. So what do you think of the special dispensation?


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/16/vatican-world-youth-women-abortions

[darkstar3]

1. "I don't like how the game is going, so I'm going to change the rules."

[Lunabelle]

2. Yep, that's so true.

Well said.

[LeftyMom]

3. Words have not yet been invented to describe what I think of the Church's treatment of women. nt

[JDPriestly]

4. I know a woman who must be advanced in years by now

who would like to be able to confess about marrying a divorced man (she was never previously married) and take communion. Do you suppose the Pope could forgive her for marrying a divorced man? I'm sure God already has. She married a divorced man with a difficult child after his first wife completely neglected the little girl. My friend was kind and a good mother to the first wife's child. I don't know what the husband or little girl would have done without her.

By the way, my friend was disabled. Do you suppose the Pope could let her take communion? She was a devout Catholic.

[pnwmom]

8. There are many priests still around who would be more than happy

to welcome that woman into their churches. I know someone, for example, whose priest advised her not to seek an annulment after her divorce, because the process would be bad for her unstable ex-husband. The same priest welcomed her new husband into joint communion after he had discussions with him about his Christian views and decided that he shared the Catholic view on the essentials.

[JDPriestly]

26. Maybe things have changed. I am very happy to hear that.

The woman was my neighbor in a very Catholic European country.

She lived a very good life and was, in her heart, a devout Catholic.

It might have been a matter of the local priest or congregation (small town) or maybe things have changed since that time. Anyway, thanks for this. It is reassuring.

[TlalocW]

5. The excommunicated Catholics should make a deal with the Pope

The pedophile priests confess and leave their jobs, the excommunicated Catholics will confess.

Until the Catholic Church purges itself, any kind of acting like it has moral authority is a joke.

TlalocW

[Sal Minella]

13. You beat me to it.

The pedophile serial child molesters confess and get the hell out, and turn themselves in to the proper prosecuting authorities.

That would do Holy Mother Church a lot more good than deigning to accept a few normal women back in.

[Mimosa]

6. Thank goodness being Catholic is a CHOICE and one can 'opt out'

I was 'born and raised' Catholic. The *best thing* about my childhood was a good 1950s and 1960s liberal catholic school education. In the South many nuns and priests were civil rights activists. As many know, many later quit the church.

I think the church has become less liberal than it was during the 1950s and 1960s. In that way it resembles the Democratic Party?

Lunabelle, welcome to DU. :)

I cannot imagine why anybody would un-rec this topic.

[Sherman A1]

16. Precisely

Well Said!

[frebrd]

7. Just another load of garbage....

served up to the undiscerning.

[lunasun]

9. Have an abortion confess it on a certain day that it was a sin and win a prize

:crazy: :crazy:
All the good the vatican could be doing in the name of jesus and this is what they come up with.........

[laconicsax]

10. I thought confession is for sins...

Since when is exercising control over your body a sin?

Oh...right...

[NMMNG]

27. Exercising control over your own body is a sin

Exercising control over the bodies of others is "conscience" and "god's will".

Isn't it interesting how that works?

[pnwmom]

11. In most places in the U.S., bishops have delegated to all their ordinary priests

the power to hear confessions about abortion and to welcome anyone who does so back into communion with the Church. So what this "spokesman" said (or what he was interpreted to say) doesn't apply to most of the U.S.

Of course, there are millions of women who simply ignore the supposedly automatic excommunication and continue to attend services, just as they ignore the Church's rules about contraception.

http://www.catholicsun.org/2010/phxdio-stjoes/Q-AND-A-ST-JOSEPH-HOSPITAL-FINAL.pdf

Since it is the law (i.e., canon law) that has imposed the penalty by virtue of the crime committed,
there must be a canonical process for removing the penalty. This is accomplished through Sacramental
Confession with a priest. In addition to the absolution from sin confessed, a priest is also to lift the
excommunication during the Rite of Penance. Historically, abortion has been a “reserved sin” in that its
absolution and resolution of the penalty have been reserved to a diocesan bishop. However, most diocesan
bishops grant to priests of their dioceses the faculty to lift the excommunication. All priests of the Diocese
of Phoenix have been granted this faculty to lift excommunication in cases of abortion.

[trotsky]

18. ...

"Of course, there are millions of women who simply ignore the supposedly automatic excommunication and continue to attend services, just as they ignore the Church's rules about contraception"

Yup. And they are called Cafeteria Catholics.

[pnwmom]

19. The "conservatives" who derogatorily use that term should turn it back on themselves.

Because they usually ignore the Church's most important teachings about social justice.

There are very few, if any, saints in any church.

[trotsky]

21. Oh, you will get no disagreement from me on that.

Everyone picks and chooses.

[Angry Dragon]

12. I thought god was the only one that could forgive sins

Judgment is mine sayeth the Lord ..............

[pnwmom]

20. You must have learned that from Protestants,

who were relying on a single quote from the Old Testament. (The more common translation, by the way, is: "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.")

Catholics believe that you have to look at the whole Bible, including the part in the New Testament where Jesus makes Peter the rock of his new church. In the Catholic view, Peter and his successors have been delegated to forgive sins on behalf of God.

"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. 19 "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matt. 16:16-19).

[laconicsax]

22. LOL! Bible Fight!

[Angry Dragon]

24. Not as much fun as palin-bachmann mud wrestling

[laconicsax]

25. Ewww!

:puke:

[Angry Dragon]

23. I did learn it from the Protestents

If the church is built on Peter, why does the church teach Pauline doctrine more so??

[trotsky]

28. Do you take those verses literally? n/t

[pennylane100]

14. Add a price list for indulgences and the next act will be Martin Luther Part II.

[deacon_sephiroth]

15. at first glance...

I saw something about the vatican and "Hundreds of thousands of young people." I braced myself for the terrifying story... fortunately most of these "young people" are old enough to defend themsevles from the priesthood... well physically at any rate, thier poor diluted minds are about to be poisoned all over again unfortunately.

So any way you look at it "Hundreds of thousands of young people" are still amrchign dagnerously close to the FREE CANDY van. I am sad for this.

[Sherman A1]

17. How terribly generous of the to do so.

Now as mentioned above, we could perhaps join that effort of the Church to recruit membership (or bring back members who have been kicked to the curb) and their money with full and complete disclosure of the many abuses of children and women and the efforts to cover up those abuses through the years.

My thought is Okay, great deal...... You go first.

[alp227]

29. meanwhile what the heck is the vatican doing about those in the church who MOLESTED youth????

freaking hypocrites holding the children to such rigorous standards but giving their own bad boys a free pass. I as an atheist would like an alternative WYD that would get children to think about it and depart from all this religious superstitious nonsense.