Priest who paid for young girls’ abortions acquitted by bishop

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

Fr. Manel Pousa

BARCELONA, April 19, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Catholic priest who financed the abortion of two young girls in his care will not be excommunicated nor otherwise punished, the Archdiocese of Barcelona declared yesterday on behalf of Cardinal Archbishop Lluís Martínez Sistach.

The archdiocese also claims that it has support for its decision from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which it says ruled in favor of the priest in 2009.

Fr. Manel Pousa, who boasts that he has paid for abortions and has blessed homosexual unions, was tried last month to determine if he had earned an automatic or “latae sententiae” excommunication from the Catholic Church.

According to the law of the Church, canon 1398, anyone “who actually procures an abortion incurs a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication.” Pope John Paul II added that “The excommunication applies to all of those who commit this crime knowing the penalty, including those accomplices without whose cooperation the crime would not have been produced,” in his encyclical letter “The Gospel of Life,” in 1995.

However, the tribunal assigned to examine the case concluded “with the proper certainty” that “the aforesaid priest has not incurred the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae established by canon 1398, for not having been in agreement with the intention of procuring the abortion and for not having a principal complicity in the abortions, which were completely decided upon and brought about by two girls in a very precarious economic situation,” according to the archdiocese.

Pousa claims that the girls whose abortions he financed, would have killed their unborn children anyway, so he decided to “commit a lesser evil to avoid another greater (evil)” and ensure that the abortion would be done in safety. A similar argument is made by Planned Parenthood to justify the legalization of abortion worldwide.

Moreover, the archdiocese goes on to reveal that the Pousa case had already been brought before the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), led by Cardinal William Levada, in 2009.  Following his initial admission in 2008 that he had financed abortions, the CDF ruled that “this dicastery, after having examined the responses that have been sent, considers that the Rev. Pousa does not appear to have incurred any canonical penalty” according to the archdiocese, which points to the decision in order to justify its own.

In addition to his cooperation in abortions and homosexual unions, Pousa endorses the creation of priestesses in the Catholic Church, rejects clerical celibacy, and admits to having a girlfriend with whom he claims to have a celibate relationship. However, Pousa has only been charged for his cooperation in the killing of two unborn children, and has now been acquitted twice. He characterizes those who criticize his behavior as members of the “extreme right.”

According to the archdiocese, Cardinal Sistach “reiterates to Mn. Pousa that his work which he does at the service of the poorest and most marginalized of the society be done always in accordance with the teaching of the Church, with its social doctrine, and respecting every human life from its conception until its natural death.”

Pousa will continue to lead a Barcelona-area parish.