Home        Answers to Questions / Editorial Articles listing

True Repentance and Abortion

Considerations on Abortion Before the November 2006 Elections

            Maybe the problem is that there is not true repentance… let me start with a story, a true story that happened with me.         

“But Father, you haven’t given us many options!” So the protestation of a parishioner at one of my previous parish assignments after I had given a homily on pro-life. I had informed the entire congregation, with long proofs, that it is matter of mortal sin to vote pro-abortion. (See homily here, see some discussion it generated here. See my response to this gentleman here, down below towards the end of the page.)

            If there’s a political party out there which happens to almost always, to a man, side with death instead of life, side with sexual perversion instead of the family, side with communism instead of the free society, let no one say that I am the one who gave them few options.

            Really what has happened, is that man, and many like him, may have a preference for a certain party, but instead of getting into the fray and keeping their party out of the evil waters of death, perversion, relativism and communism, they simply blame everyone else that their preferred party has these problems.

            Recently a Catholic priest addressed some other priests among whom I was included. He said that we have to silence the pro-life message, that it hurts the many women who have committed abortions, that fields of white crosses only showed that the given parish was “not friendly,” and so on. A woman, a good woman, addressed us also, who had had an abortion and deeply repented from it, and sided with father on how bad priests were for making post-abortive mothers feel bad.

            Of course, “feeling good” in my Archdiocese is the supreme law of morality, liturgy, sexual ethics and canonical observance. But that’s a topic for another day.

            There are many women out there who have been wounded by abortion, much like there are many children who have been killed by abortion. It went worse for the child than for the mother. Yet some of these women want to pull their lives together again. And among these, there are two types.

            One type has come to grips with the evil she has done, she doesn’t stop to blame boyfriend or mom or dad or doctor or anyone else, she knows it can never be undone, and empties herself of her self-love with profound sentiments of repentance. This woman is not on the road to healing: she is healed, spiritually by the sacrament of reconciliation, and emotionally and socially by her deep embracing of the truth.

            Another type is still angry at everyone in the world for making her feel guilty. For her to feel bad about her abortion is a bad thing; and if someone makes her have sad feelings, that’s a bad person in her book. She blames everyone else for what she herself did. She cannot admit to herself or to God the great and irreversible sin they have committed. She can’t even bear to say she has sinned, perhaps. Maybe she’ll mention it in a confession, but with many excuses. When she is reminded of her sin, by a field of white crosses, a well delivered homily, a commercial, a piece of mail, she fails to admit her sin, return to her repentance, and confide in God’s mercy, and she does not confess her moral misery and abandon herself to her Father’s mercy; rather, she gets angry that she is confronted once again with the truth of her actions, and says it’s Fr. Pavone’s fault, Right to Life’s fault, and so on. It’s all about, “I’m not a bad person…”

            This is a spiritual phenomenon which may occur not only to those who have fallen into abortion, but into many other sins, even shameful ones, especially the sexual ones. There was an initial repentance, but it’s imperfect. One sees it is imperfect, because of the anger, the rejection, the sadness the soul experiences when brought to the memory of the sin he had committed. Perfect repentance is different, for it embraces the truth of man’s moral misery, of one’s own moral misery, not with the disappointment of “I can’t believe I committed that sin…” which is in fact only pride and spiritual vanity. Perfect repentance requires coming to grips with our incredible sinfulness, so as to apply to ourselves the blood of our Loving Savior. Perfect repentance means admitting with profound conviction, “I am a bad person, for I have sinned. And it is for sinful persons like me for whom Jesus shed his blood. The more I am a sinner, the more his blood was for me. Praised be the name of God, who has loved a sinner like me!”

            And so it is that the more we realize how sinful we are, and the infinite malice of our sins, so much more will we realize how great God’s love is, and how meaningful the sacrifice of the Son of God is. To reach this point in the spiritual life, it is necessary to live a penitential life, and to beg God for the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially fear of the lord and understanding.