ROME — Pope Francis offered a message of hope and reconciliation this week to mothers who have aborted their babies, insisting that “evil does not have the last word.”
The pontiff has dedicated his prayer intention for the month of November to pray for “all parents who mourn the loss of a son or daughter,” asking that they receive support from their faith community and “peace of heart” from the Spirit of Consolation.
The U.S. Catholic bishops, too, recently concluded a special week of prayer for an end to abortion, insisting that it must be the “pre-eminent priority” for Catholic voters.
In that special novena, the bishops asked Christians to also pray for “all who suffer after participation in abortion,” that they “find healing in Christ’s unending mercy.”
“No sin is unforgiveable, and no sinner is beyond redemption,” they noted. “Christ came to offer us His infinite love and mercy, and we can receive it in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.”
On Wednesday, the pope met with members of “Project Hope,” an organization founded in 1999 to accompany women and men who suffer the “intolerable pain” of having chosen abortion.
“Abortion is one of the most dramatic experiences a person can go through,” the group notes on its website. “Abortion wounds the soul of everyone involved. Not only does it destroy the life of the unborn child, but it also leaves a trail of pain and destruction, of broken lives, families, and relationships.”
In his meeting with them Wednesday to mark their 25th anniversary, Francis called them “angels” for having cared for the “other victims of abortion,” those who have decided to end the lives of their children.
While the arrival of a newborn is often synonymous with “a joy that mysteriously overwhelms us and renews hope,” the pope said, the pain experienced on the death of a child “is the antithesis of that joy and shocks us in a brutal way.”
The biblical image of Rachel weeping for her children, “who cannot be comforted, because they are no more” (Jer 31:15), refers to the holy innocents and the bitter weeping was the lament of mothers “is always renewed by memory,” Francis said.
Such a great evil may distance us from Jesus, “preventing him from entering our home, from having a place in our inn,” he added, yet “we must not lose hope, because evil does not have the last word, it is never definitive.”
Francis is not the first pope to address mothers who have aborted their children. In 1995, Pope John Paul II similarly sought to offer a word of healing to women who have made this decision.
“I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion,” he wrote in his encyclical titled Evangelium Vitae. “The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision” and the wound in your heart “may not yet have healed.”
“Certainly, what happened was and remains terribly wrong,” he continued. “But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly.”
If you have not already done so, “give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance,” he wrote. “The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.”
Concretely, John Paul suggested that their experience of sin and mercy could provide a powerful witness to others who are tempted.
“With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone’s right to life,” he said. “Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life.”
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