Spanish bishop encourages women who have aborted to receive Sacrament of Reconciliation

Madrid, Spain, Nov 12, 2009 / 17:52 pm

The secretary general of the Spanish bishops' conference, Auxiliary Bishop Juan Antonio Martinez Camino of Madrid, encouraged women who have aborted to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

During a breakfast in the Spanish capital, Bishop Martinez Camino said the Church reaches out to women who are feeling tempted to have an abortion or have already experienced this tragedy.

He then stressed that God’s mercy awaits those tormented by abortion.  “Those who have not gone to confession are encouraged to do so because God wants to offer them a solution and deep peace,” he said. The Church “defends the rights of the innocents,” and is “conscious of the problem that [abortion] entails.”

“She is not merciless towards those who fall into sin,” he continued.

Bishop Martinez Camino warned lawmakers that support of the proposed law on abortion would constitute “public sin” and would place them in an “objective state of sin.”  While “the Church cannot judge their subjectivity,” he added, those who “directly collaborate” in an abortion incur excommunication.

The bishop said lawmakers and voters must consider the issue of life above their own political party platforms and party leaders.  Those who affirm that an innocent life can be taken find themselves “in contradiction with Divine and Catholic law,” he added.

He then praised health care workers and others who have exercised their right to conscientious objection “with civic and moral courage,” and he warned against the “grave manipulation” of portraying abortion as a medical procedure, as “abortion is never a cure because pregnancy is not a disease.”