"Why bother staying Catholic Father? I've had an abortion..."

(Vatican Radio) Monsignor Peter Fleetwood touches on a delicate issue. As a priest he wonders if any of you has a friend who stays away from Church because she says : I know what the Catholic Church thinks about abortion , so why bother?

Perhaps Father Fleetwood suggests, you could be the person to convince her God will never write her off, even when the Church's representatives fail to get that message across: "..the other evening during mass, I had a sort of revelation, which made me put these few words together. We were saying the 'Lamb of God' prayer before communion.

Maybe when you are talking to your friend who has had an abortion, you could think of these words: 'Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us'. Ask her to say those words with hope that the Lord will have mercy on them -on her and her baby. We say it a second time :'Have mercy on us': 'Have mercy on us': pray that the Lord will have mercy on them -on her, on her baby and on the man whose child it was, too. Perhaps, n hisown way,he,too,could not face what had happened.You never know. Then comes the final prayer:'Grant us peace'. Peace will come when she realises that those silly old words are true. We hate the sin, but the flip side of the deal really is that we must always love the sinner. Forgive us priests if we ever fail to get that across, because that is the whole point of Jesus Christ's life on earth.".

Part of the series 'Why Bother? Staying Catholic despite it all...', produced by Veronica Scarisbrick
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