Evolution of a church: Priests allowed to forgive abortion.

Ridiculous

I'm not seeking to turn this into a Catholic bashing thread, but how is the practice of seeking forgiveness through some intermediary explained in the Roman Catholic
Church?

I've always been disturbed by that but never researched the issue.

There's ALOT I don't understand about the Catholic Church.

The pope is irrelevant.

If you are sincere in your repentance and do that, yes. But it doesn't excuse you or wash away the consequences of your actions.

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The pope is irrelevant.

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Not to an estimated 1.2 Billion people on this Earth.

I'm not Catholic, but I read about this. As I understand it, a woman who has an abortion is excommunicated from the Catholic church. Normally, to return, she must repent through confession and receive forgiveness through a bishop; a priest cannot reinstate her to the church, only a bishop. I believe her priest has to support her petition to the bishop.

From late 2015 to late 2016, the Catholic Church a having a "Year of Mercy" and basically loosening the reins a little to bring people into the church, to be inclusive. During this year, parish priests can forgive the sin of abortion to a repentant confession-er. For that year, they can reinstate her to the church without going through a bishop. After the year is over, it could revert back. The Pope is trying to make a more compassionate environment and create a church that journeys through life with its members. I think he's the perfect Pope for the time.

I don't really understand the need for confession to a priest who acts as the intermediary and dispenses punishments for your sins as well as forgiveness. That's not how I believe. I was raised that the intermediary to God was Jeaus Christ.

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So if I were to kill someone but I accept Christ as my lord and savior all my sins are forgiven?

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If you are truly repentant, yes.

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The Pope can give priests the discretion to forgive? Now I'm certainly not religious nor particularly interested in religion, but isn't forgiveness a superpower of gods? How can these mortals usurp something that seems to define the deity they claim to represent in life?

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Isn't the Pope a little like God Incarnate -- I mean not literally or even completely supported by most Catholics like that, but I've always felt like he could make mandates and it would be accepted as the word of God.

Similarly, I'm starting to notice a large group of people supporting unilateral forgiveness -- and saying you can even ask in the afterlife.

''Eternal punishment should only be issued for eternal sin, the most deserving of hell should be the people who slandered god's name by creating it.'' -- Paraphrasing, but Asimov was pretty ahead of his time.

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I don't really understand the need for confession to a priest who acts as the intermediary

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There are a lot of examples in the Bible of the need for a church on Earth, and for the church elders to act on the behalf of regular lay people (Jesus: "As the Father has sent me, I also send you"). A few brief examples:

"If a man...shall bring a guilt offering for himself to the Lord. And the priest shall make atonement for him...for his sin which he has committed; and the sin which he has committed shall be forgiven him."

"Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him...and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another..."

Paul, an apostle: "And to whom you have pardoned anything, I also. For, what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned anything, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ."

"All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation."