VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis will give all priests discretion during the Roman Catholic Church’s Holy Year to formally forgive women who have had abortions — the Argentine pontiff’s latest move towards a more open and inclusive church. 
 
 In Church teaching, abortion is such a grave sin that those who procure or perform it incur an automatic excommunication, which can only be lifted by designated church officials. 
 
 However, from Dec. 8 to Nov. 26, during an extraordinary Holy Year or “Jubilee” on the theme of mercy, all priests will be able to do so if the women repent “with a contrite heart”, the pope said in a letter published by the Vatican on Tuesday. 
 
 Francis described the “existential and moral ordeal” faced by women who have terminated pregnancies and said he had “met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonizing and painful decision”. 
 
 The pope’s letter did not mention those who perform abortions. 
 
 Francis is the first non-European pope in 1,300 years and has marked himself out for tolerance on taboo topics. Although he has shown no intention of retracting the Church’s opposition to abortion, he has alarmed conservatives by taking a less forceful tone than his predecessors. 
 
 “This is by no means an attempt to minimize the gravity of this sin, but to widen the possibility of showing mercy,” Vatican chief spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told reporters. 
 
 Deputy Vatican spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini said that “for now” the change would apply only during the Holy Year. 
 
 Usually only a bishop, missionary or the chief confessor of a diocese can offer absolution for an abortion, Benedettini said, although bishops in countries such as the United States and Britain have delegated this authority to parish priests. 
 
 Boston College theology professor James Bretzke said the pope was “emphasizing mercy and not retribution ... embracing reconciliation and not excommunication”. 
 
 Liberal group Catholics for Choice welcomed the move as a gesture of engagement with women. 
 
 “This is a pope who is not stuck in the pelvic zone, and perhaps his message on how he thinks about abortion is more for his brother bishops than Catholics in the pew,” said the group’s president, Jon O’Brien. 
 
 But anti-abortion campaigners said they feared the pope’s letter could be misconstrued. 
 
 “We would be concerned that a too widespread permission could be misinterpreted as the Church softening its teaching on abortion that it is the taking of the life of an innocent human being,” said John Smeaton, chief executive of Britain’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. 
 
 Smeaton said it was very important that a meeting of bishops at the Vatican next month on the family should leave “no ambiguity about the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of human life and the evil of abortion.” 
 
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 The pope is due this month to visit the United States, where his gesture to women who have terminated pregnancies took on a political dimension given the fierce opposition to abortion within the Republican Party. 
 
 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who is Catholic, told Fox News the pope’s decision was “extraordinary”. 
 
 “I hope that we also focus on mercy for the unborn, the hundreds of thousands of babies that will die,” the former Florida governor said. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Holy Year is one of the 1.2 billion-member church’s most important events, and sees the faithful make pilgrimages to Rome and other religious sites. It takes place every 25 years unless a pope decrees an extraordinary one to bring attention to a particular topic or need. 
 
 Catholics performing pilgrimages or good works during the Holy Year can traditionally gain indulgences, or the remission of punishment for sins, under certain conditions. 
 
 Unlike in previous holy years, when pilgrims had to come to Rome, cathedrals and other religious venues around the world are expected to be designated national pilgrimage sites. 
 
 In his letter, the pope also said indulgences would be available to prisoners, who, because they are incarcerated, cannot pass through the Holy Doors of the papal basilicas in Rome. The Holy Doors, which symbolize the doorway of salvation for Catholics, are only opened during Jubilee Years and pilgrims passing through them secure the remission of their sins. 
 
 Of prisoners, Francis said: “May the gesture of directing their thought and prayer to the Father each time they cross the threshold of their cell signify for them their passage through the Holy Door.” 
 
 Pope Francis, framed by the water of a fountain, talks from the window during his Sunday Angelus prayer in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican, August 30, 2015. REUTERS/Max Rossi 
 
 Holy Year activities will also be open to adherents of the ultra-traditionalist Roman Catholic splinter group known as the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX). 
 
 The Swiss-based SSPX, which rejects some of the reforms made at the historic 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council, defied Rome in 1988 by illegally consecrating four bishops, triggering their excommunication by the late Pope John Paul. 
 
 Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications in 2009 and made some concessions to the group. But one of the bishops, British-born Bishop Richard Williamson, caused an uproar by denying the Holocaust. ||||| Skip Ad Ad Loading... x Embed x Share Pope Francis' evolving views on controversial social issues have surprised observers. Now an unprecedented bit of research shows that USA Catholics' views may be just as surprising. USA TODAY 
 
 Pope Francis leads special prayers marking a day he has dedicated to praising and protecting nature's marvels in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, Sept. 1, 2015. Any Catholic priest -- rather than just bishops and selected prelates -- will be able to pardon the grave sin of abortion during the upcoming Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis has said. (Photo: Murizio Brambatti, EPA) 
 
 Pope Francis' evolving views on a host of fraught social issues have surprised observers since his rise to the Vatican 2-and-a-half years ago. Now, an unprecedented bit of research shows that USA Catholics' views may be just as surprising. 
 
 A trove of data out Wednesday from the Pew Research Center finds that the typical American Catholic doesn't find it sinful to use contraception or to live with a romantic partner outside of marriage. While nearly half of Catholics believe the church should not recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples, just as many think it should. 
 
 The findings come as Pope Francis this week waded into one of the thorniest topics of his papacy: abortion. 
 
 On Tuesday, he said priests can forgive the "sin of abortion" for women who are sorry about it. In a letter published by the Vatican, the pontiff — who has been striving to build a more inclusive church — said priests will have the power during a special "Holy Year of Mercy" that begins in December. 
 
 The new Pew survey of 5,122 adults found that while most Catholics — 57% — believe it's "sinful" to terminate a pregnancy, opposing abortion ranks relatively low among a list of 10 beliefs when it comes to defining what's "essential" to being a Catholic. Only about one in three respondents said opposing abortion was essential to being a Catholic. By contrast, about two-thirds said "having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" was essential. 
 
 "I think it just says something about how salient this issue is to Catholics overall," said Jessica Martinez, a Pew senior researcher. "When they think about living out their faith day to day, it doesn't seem like opposing abortion is high on the list for most Catholics." 
 
 Like much of the survey, the questions asking Catholics to rank essential beliefs are unprecedented for Pew, Martinez said, so they don't have comparable data from previous years. 
 
 In his brief tenure, which began in the spring of 2013, Pope Francis has laid out sometimes controversial stances on a host of social issues, including divorce, gay marriage and contraception. 
 
 Francis hasn't budged much from the church's view that artificial contraception is a sin — in remarks he later walked back, Francis said Catholics need not reproduce "like rabbits.'' Days later, he praised big families for "welcoming children as a true gift of God." 
 
 The Pew survey found that 66% of Catholics believe it's not sinful to use contraception — actually, that's several percentage points higher than the general public's view. Overall, 63% of Americans believe it's not sinful to use contraception. 
 
 Asked by Pew if they believe the church will "definitely" or "probably" allow contraception by 2050, 59% of Catholics agreed. And three-fourths believe the church should allow it. 
 
 Just months after being named pontiff, Francis struck a tolerant tone on gay marriage, saying, "Who am I to judge?" when asked whether gays and lesbians could be good Christians. "They shouldn't be marginalized," he said. "The tendency (to be homosexual) is not the problem. They are our brothers." 
 
 The Pew survey found that Catholics are evenly split, at 46% apiece, on whether the church should recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples. Another 8% are undecided. 
 
 On divorce, the Pope issued a call last month for the church to embrace divorced and remarried Catholics. He said such couples "are not excommunicated, and they absolutely must not be treated that way." Francis told a Vatican crowd, "They always belong to the church." 
 
 The Pew survey actually revealed that, given the choice between a divorced or same-sex couple raising children, more Catholics believe that the same-sex arrangement is "acceptable and as good as any other arrangement." 
 
 Even as the findings suggest that many USA Catholics are at odds with traditional church teachings on social issues, Martinez noted, seven in 10 say they couldn't imagine quitting Catholicism. 
 
 "They're still very much attached to their church," she said. 
 
 Contributing: Katharine Lackey, John Bacon, USA TODAY 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1Exn6FI ||||| It was meant to be the document that put a lid on the clerical sex abuse scandals that have swept the Roman Catholic world. But instead of quelling fury from within and without the church, the Vatican stoked the anger of liberal Catholics and women's groups by including a provision in its revised decree that made the "attempted ordination" of women one of the gravest crimes in ecclesiastical law. 
 
 The change put the "offence" on a par with the sex abuse of minors. 
 
 Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, called the document "one of the most insulting and misogynistic pronouncements that the Vatican has made for a very long time. Why any self-respecting woman would want to remain part of an organisation that regards their full and equal participation as a 'grave sin' is a mystery to me." 
 
 Vivienne Hayes, the chief executive of the Women's Resource Centre, said the decision to raise women's ordination to the level of a serious crime was "appalling". 
 
 She added: "This declaration is doubly disempowering for women as it also closes the door on dialogue around women's access to power and decision making, when they are still under-represented in all areas of political, religious and civic life. We would urge the Catholic church to acknowledge that women's rights are not incompatible with religious faith." 
 
 Ceri Goddard, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, said: "We are sure that the vast majority of the general public will share in our abject horror at the Vatican's decision to categorise the ordination of women as an 'offence' in the same category as paedophilia – deemed to be one of the 'gravest offences a priest can commit'. 
 
 "This statement follows a series where the Vatican, an institution which yields great influence and power not only in the Catholic community but also wider society, has pitched itself in direct opposition not only to women's rights but to our equal worth and value. We hope this is an issue that the government takes the opportunity to raise if it still feels the impending papal visit is appropriate." 
 
 The revision of a decree first issued nine years ago was intended to address the issue of clerical sex abuse. Last night it remained unclear why the Vatican had decided to invite further controversy by changing the status of women's ordination in canon law. 
 
 Since scandals blew up in Germany in January, five Roman Catholic bishops have resigned as evidence has come to light of priests who raped or molested children, and of superiors who turned a blind eye to safeguard the reputation of the church. Data from countries in which church membership is officially registered suggest tens of thousands of Catholics, perhaps hundreds of thousands, have abandoned their faith in disgust. 
 
 Father Federico Lombardi, the pope's spokesman, stressed that the new rules on sex abuse applied solely to procedures for defrocking priests under canon law. They had no bearing on whether suspected offenders were notified to the civil authorities – he said bishops had already been reminded of their duty to do so. 
 
 The most important change is to extend the period during which a clergyman can be tried by a church court from 10 to 20 years, dating from the 18th birthday of his victim. Many people who were abused by priests are unable to summon up the courage to come forward until well into adulthood. 
 
 The new norms also streamline the procedures for dealing with the most urgent and serious cases, enabling bishops to defrock priests without a long, costly trial. They put abuse of the mentally disabled on a level with that of minors. And they introduce a new crime of paedophile pornography, defined as "the acquisition, possession or disclosure" by a clergyman of pornographic images of children below the age of 14. 
 
 Monsignor Charles Scicluna, who helped overhaul the rules, said: "This gives a signal that we are very, very serious in our commitment to promote safe environments and to offer an adequate response to abuse." 
 
 Lombardi said the Vatican was working on further instructions "so that the directives it issues on the subject of sexual abuse of minors, either by the clergy or institutions connected with the church, may be increasingly rigorous, coherent and effective". 
 
 But Barbara Doris of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap) said it was tackling the issue the wrong way round. "Defrocking a predator, by definition, is too late," she said. "Severe harm has already been done."
– Abortion is one of the sins that mandates automatic excommunication in the Roman Catholic Church, but for the Holy Year of Mercy that begins Dec. 8, Pope Francis says priests can, at their discretion, absolve women for terminating pregnancies, Reuters reports. "Many … believe that they have no other option," the pontiff said in a letter released today by the Vatican. "I am well aware of the pressure that has led them to this decision. I know that it is an existential and moral ordeal. I have met so many women who bear in their heart the scar of this agonizing and painful decision." He then instructs priests to offer forgiveness to women who've had one and who have a "contrite heart," and as long as the priests relay "words of genuine welcome combined with a reflection that explains the gravity of the sin committed." The usual excommunication over abortion applies not only to women who receive one, but also for those who take part in providing one or help a woman get one, and usually only a Christian missionary or the "chief confessor of a diocese" can formally forgive a woman who's terminated a pregnancy, Reuters notes. However, when the church calls a holy year, or jubilee year, it's a time for sins to be remitted and pardons welcomed from God, per the National Catholic Reporter; jubilee years have historically taken place every 25 to 50 years since the year 1300, the paper adds. Pope Francis' jubilee year will end Nov. 20, 2016. No word if women who've had abortions will go back to being excommunicated after it's over. (The pope recently made a conciliatory gesture toward remarried Catholics.)