BALTIMORE (CNS) — Signaling the importance they gave to the topic, three U.S. cardinals offered a briefing Nov. 14 on efforts to expand and strengthen the church’s post-abortion healing ministry, Project Rachel.

Cardinals Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, Sean P. O’Malley of Boston and Donald W. Wuerl of Washington reported on the work of Project Rachel during the first day of the Nov. 14-16 fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore.

Women who have had abortions, as well as the men and parents who might have encouraged it, “need to know that God forgives them and that all is not lost,” said Cardinal O’Malley, who described Project Rachel as “one of our best pastoral initiatives.”

Cardinal DiNardo said the “death toll” since abortion was legalized in 1973 is 53 million in the U.S. alone, with an estimated 35 million women having undergone abortions since that time. He said about 10 million of those women were Catholic, as were an unknown number of the fathers and grandparents of those lost children.

Those abortions have left “awful wounds,” he added, with many people despairing “of being ever forgiven by God.” But he called such a view false and even dangerous, “because it discourages women and men in need of God’s forgiveness from seeking the pastoral care” that is available to them.