[Question:]{.underline} Can a priest forgive the sin of abortion?
[Answer:]{.underline} Abortion is not just a sin. It is a monumental crime, and one which the Church punishes in a very special way, more than other sins, such as murder. The gravity of this sins lies in the perversity that characterizes it: killing deliberately the unborn child in his mother’s womb is so radically opposed to the desire of nature itself, as to be a direct revolt against God, the author and giver of life. Consequently, abortion is punished with a censure, that is an ecclesiastical punishment, and in particular the censure of excommunication, which excludes the Catholic from receiving any of the spiritual benefits and blessings of the Church, most particularly the sacraments.
Consequently, a person who has knowingly and deliberately cooperated in an abortion, and who is aware of the censure attached to it, is automatically excommunicated. He cannot receive the valid absolution from his sin until such time as the censure of excommunication is remitted. This is also a part of the Church’s power to bind and to lose, but it is in the Church’s law reserved to the bishop of the diocese.
However, to protect the anonymity and the reputation of persons who have committed such grave crimes (in cases where there is no public scandal), the Church allows the censure of excommunication to be absolved in the confessional. Normally, the priest has to obtain authorization from his bishop to grant this absolution, although generally it is delegated to all those priests who have jurisidiction. Once the censure has been absolved, then the priest is free to absolve from the sin, for there are no longer in the Church any reserved sins.
Consequently, it is generally the priest, who will give absolution from the censure and also from the sin of abortion, with two separate penances, in the process of sacramental absolution. Since traditional priests, who use supplied jurisdiction, cannot have recourse to a local Ordinary to obtain permission to absolve from the censure, the Church considers this impossibility of recourse as being sufficient reason for them to grant the absolution themselves. Thanks be to God the Church is all merciful, and always makes it possible for the true penitent to receive absolution. Furthermore, the Church has a special precaution that is applied by every traditional priest when he administers sacramental absolution. He always uses a conditional formula, absolving from any excommunication or interdict that a person may perhaps have incurred, so as to be on the safe side and to ensure that the absolution from sin that immediately follows is valid. It is unfortunate that this precaution, like so many other assurances of God’s mercy, is omitted from the new rite. Let, then, no person who may have cooperated in this crime hesitate for an instant to approach the tribunal of mercy.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.