Pope Expands Abortion Pardons

“In a letter released on Tuesday, the pontiff requested that women who have abortions—and the doctors who perform them—can be pardoned, during the church’s self-declared ‘Jubilee Year,’ which runs for most of next year. According to Catholic doctrine, abortion is such a grave sin that those who procure or perform it are automatically excommunicated… ‘I have decided... that during the Jubilee Year, all priests will have the faculty to absolve from the sin of abortion, all who have committed it and who ask forgiveness with heartfelt penance,’ Francis wrote” (Deutsche Welle, September 1, 2015). “In Roman Catholicism, the Jubilee is a special year of remission of sin and universal pardon, called every 25 or 50 years” (ibid.).

Although abortion is clearly murder (see “Abortion: A Modern Holocaust?”), Christ died so that all sinners can come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), and repentance is necessary for sins to be forgiven (Acts 2:38). However, nowhere in the Scriptures are human beings given the prerogative to absolve sins or place a time limit on one’s opportunity to repent. God speed the day when all of humanity will learn about the power of Christ’s shed blood to forgive sins (Matthew 26:28), and about the blessings that come with a life of obedience to God and His ways.

To learn what the Bible teaches about repentance, read “Have You Committed the Unpardonable Sin?”