Symbolically calling on the entire global Roman Catholic church to take up his papacy's central message of compassion and pardon, Pope Francis on Friday announced that he is convoking a jubilee year to be called the Holy Year of Mercy. 
 
 Saying he has "thought often about how the church can make more evident its mission of being a witness of mercy," the pope announced the new jubilee year during a Lenten penitential service in St. Peter's Basilica. 
 
 "I am convinced that the whole church -- that has much need to receive mercy because we are sinners — will find in this jubilee the joy to rediscover and render fruitful the mercy of God, with which we are all called to give consolation to every man and woman of our time," Francis said in announcing the year. 
 
 "Let us not forget that God pardons and God pardons always," the pope continued. "Let us never tire of asking for forgiveness." 
 
 "We entrust it as of now to the Mother of Mercy, because she looks to us with her gaze and watches over our way," Francis said. "Our penitential way, our way of open hearts, during a year to receive the indulgence of God, to receive the mercy of God." 
 
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 The pope also said he wants the church to live the upcoming holy year "in the light" of Jesus' words in the Gospel of Luke: "Be merciful, just as your father is merciful." 
 
 A jubilee year is a special year called by the church to receive blessing and pardon from God and remission of sins. The Catholic church has called jubilee years every 25 or 50 years since the year 1300 and has also called special jubilee years from time to time, known as extraordinary jubilee years. 
 
 The last jubilee year was held in 2000 during the papacy of Pope John Paul II and was known as "the Great Jubilee." The last extraordinary jubilee year was held in 1983 to celebrate 1,950 years since the death and resurrection of Jesus. 
 
 Francis on Friday said the new jubilee would begin on this year's Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated Dec. 8. It will close on Nov. 20, 2016, the day celebrated that year as the feast of Christ the King. 
 
 Announcing the closing date, the pope added a new term to the title of Christ celebrated that day, also calling Jesus "the living face of the mercy of the father." 
 
 Francis said he has entrusted the organization of the jubilee year to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization "so that that they may animate it as a new stage of the journey of the church in its mission to bring to every person the gospel of mercy." 
 
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 The jubilee year will formally open Dec. 8 with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. The other holy doors of basilicas around the world will then be opened as a sign of God's opening a new pathway to salvation. 
 
 Francis has made mercy a central theme of his papacy, speaking of it often in homilies and in his texts. His apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium ("The Joy of the Gospel"), uses the word 32 times. 
 
 The pope has also called two global meetings of Catholic bishops at the Vatican -- known as synods, with one being held last year and the next this October -- which have focused on issues of family life. 
 
 Those meetings are known to have discussed how the church might use its teachings on mercy to address sometimes difficult contemporary family situations, such as divorce and remarriage and same-sex unions. 
 
 In his homily at the penitential service Friday, Francis gave another wide-ranging reflection on the role of mercy and pardon in church teaching. 
 
 Recounting the Gospel reading of the day -- in which a woman described as sinful washes Jesus with her hair and tears -- Francis said, "Every gesture of this woman speaks of love and expresses her desire to have an unshakeable certainty in her life: that of being forgiven." 
 
 "And Jesus gives this certainty, welcoming her and demonstrating to her the love of God for her, truly for her," the pope said. 
 
 Continuing the story to talk about Simon, the Pharisee who owned the house, Francis said he was a "lord" who "cannot find the path of love." 
 
 For him, the pope said, "all is calculated, all [is] thought. He stands at the threshold of formality." 
 
 "It is an ugly thing, formal love," Francis continued. "It cannot be understood." 
 
 "The call of Jesus pushes each of us to never stop at the surface of things, especially when we are dealing with a person," the pope said later. "We are called to look beyond, to focus on the heart to see of how much generosity everyone is capable. 
 
 "No one can be excluded from the mercy of God," Francis continued, repeating: "No one can be excluded from the mercy of God!" 
 
 "The church is the house that welcomes all and refuses no one," the pope said. "Its doors remain wide open, so that those touched by grace can find the certainty of forgiveness." 
 
 "Better must be the love of the church expressed toward those who convert," he said. 
 
 After listening to the readings of the day and giving the homily at Friday's penitential service, the pope also heard some individual confessions, spending about 45 minutes in a confessional in St. Peter's with individuals. 
 
 The pontifical council, with Francis' backing, has called on all parishes around the world to remain open for confessions for 24 hours Friday through Saturday as possible. 
 
 [Joshua J. McElwee is NCR Vatican correspondent. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.] ||||| Answer 
 
 Yes. In the 1983 Code of Canon Law (CIC) eight other sins carry the penalty of automatic excommunication: apostasy, heresy, schism (CIC 1364:1), violating the sacred species (CIC 1367), physically attacking the pope (CIC 1370:1), sacramentally absolving an accomplice in a sexual sin (CIC 1378:1), consecrating a bishop without authorization (CIC 1382), and directly violating the seal of confession (1388:1). 
 
 Apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith. Heresy is the obstinate doubt or denial, after baptism, of a defined Catholic doctrine. Schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or the refusal to be in communion with members of the Church who are in communion with him (CIC 751). 
 
 Violation of the sacred species is the throwing away the consecrated species of Christ's body or blood or the taking or retaining of them for a sacrilegious purpose (CIC 1367). 
 
 Physically attacking the pope is self-explanatory, as are absolving an accomplice in a sexual sin and consecrating a bishop without authorization from the Vatican. 
 
 A direct violation of the seal of confession is one in which both the penitent and the penitent's sin can easily be determined by the confessor's words or behavior. Again, the penalty of automatic excommunication does not apply if no one perceives the disclosure (CIC 1330). 
 
 Automatic excommunication for abortion (CIC 1398) applies not only to the woman who has the abortion, but to "all those who commit this crime with knowledge of the penalty attached, and [this] includes those accomplices without whose help the crime would not have been committed" (Evangelium Vitae 62). 
 
 No one is automatically excommunicated for any offense if, without any fault of his own, he was unaware that he was violating a law (CIC 1323:2) or that a penalty was attached to the law (CIC 1324:1:9). The same applies if one was a minor, had the imperfect use of reason, was forced through grave or relatively grave fear, was forced through serious inconvenience, or in certain other circumstances (CIC 1324). ||||| 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.
– 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.)