give absolution

I have no wish either to give absolution or argue anything out again.

He instructs priests and bishops to give absolution through confession to the contrite and remorseful who have had abortions.

The priests tell us all the time that God’s mercy is infinite but how can any priest give absolution to someone like me who delivers telegrams and winds up in a state of excitement on a green sofa with a girl dying of the galloping consumption.

Not only were the bishops required to give absolution to any Dominican or Franciscan who should apply for it, except in cases of such enormity that the Holy See alone could act, but the Mendicant priors and ministers were authorized to absolve their friars from any censures inflicted on them.

Heresy, of course, was a “reserved” case for which the ordinary confessor could not give absolution.