Dear Vincent:

This is very question and one that even famous Catholics get wrong.

We are always to forgive. The Our Father says "forgive us our sins (trespasses) as we forgive those who sin (trespass) against us."

The Our Father does not say: "forgive others only if they repent and ask for forgiveness".

There are a few reasons for this:

1) to not forgive is to make a judgment of condemnation. Only God is the Judge able to condemn.

2) to not forgive is a form of revenge. God says the vengeance is His alone.

3) to not forgive is a form of pride -- one of the seven deadly sins. It is a form of pride because in not forgiving we are saying we know more than God, that our evaluation of the person outranks God's, and that we know better than God who is willing and ready to forgive the abuser.

3) to not forgive is to hang on to bitterness and resentment. This destroys our spirit and soul and displeases God. It is a violation of the Great Commandment to love.

Those who do not forgive place themselves in psychological and spiritual bondage. To not forgive is as to allow the abuser to continue to hurt us in effect. This can be true even if the abuser has been dead for years. We must "let go" and let God deal with the abuser; he is not off the hook with God. We we hang on to this hurt it will effect our psychological health.

Spiritually, to not forgive places ourselves on a hook that the devil can exploit. Many of our clients we counsel in our Deliverance apostolate cannot be freed from demonization until they forgive.

One of the reasons that people often find it hard to forgive is that they do not understand forgiveness. As a result in our deliverance counseling we have an entire session dealing just with the issue of forgiveness. I recommend that all read our packet:

Dealing with Bitterness and Unforgiveness (pdf file)

Forgiveness is possible, even for the most horrid and evil wrongs once a person knows the real nature of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not about the other person; it is about us. Learn what forgiveness is and is not from the article linked above.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary