Vatican City, Apr 6, 2018 / 02:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Hundreds of Pope Francis’ missionaries of mercy are gathering at the Vatican in coming days for formation and fellowship, for the first time since their mandate was extended at the end of the Jubilee of Mercy.
It has been two years since the missionaries were first commissioned on Ash Wednesday 2016 during the jubilee, and it has been nearly 18 months since the pope extended their mandate at the close of the holy year, allowing them to continue hearing confessions freely in every diocese throughout the world and lifting censures – ecclesiastical penalties – that normally require the permission of the pope.
The missionaries, who number over 1,000 and come from all over the world, have spent much of the past two years working to spread the message of God’s mercy and forgiveness through their daily activities and ministries, including talks, retreats, and social communications. An emphasis on confession is central to their work, which many of the missionaries say is greatly needed.
“I’m very grateful the Holy Father has continued our mandate, because not only is it needed, but also, it’s a joy to do this work as a priest,” Fr. John Mary Devaney told CNA April 6.
He said the missionaries originally got a letter informing them that their mandate would end with the close of the Jubilee of Mercy, and were surprised and delighted when Pope Francis published a letter the day after the end of the holy year saying their ministry would be extended.
Devaney said the majority of American Catholics he meets do not go to confession regularly. But when he has heard the confession of someone who has been away for decades, the experience was largely life-changing for the penitent.
The encounter with God’s mercy in a new or forgotten way is so powerful, he said, that “I have no doubt that they will continue to go to confession again.”
Devaney, who comes from the Archdiocese of New York, hosts the weekly program Word to Life on SiriusXM radio, and is just one of some 600 Missionaries of Mercy expected to come to Rome for an April 8-11 meeting focused on spiritual formation and building fellowship.
During the meeting, missionaries will have the opportunity to go to confession themselves and listen to talks dedicated to themes relevant to their ministry, such as confession as a sacrament of mercy, and sin and mercy in the life of the priest.
The event will open April 8 with Mass for Divine Mercy Sunday, which the missionaries will concelebrate alongside Pope Francis.
They will hear talks from Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; Archbishop Rino Fisichella, prefect of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization; and Archbishop Jose Octavio Ruiz Arenas, secretary for the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization.
The missionaries’ work was placed under the jurisdiction of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, from which they receive instruction and ongoing communication throughout the year.
According to Msgr. Graham Bell, an official working with the council, the main idea for the event is that it offer “ongoing formation” to the missionaries.
“It’s about the exercise of your ministry as Missionaries of Mercy. So it’s understanding how mercy works, how it functions in the life of persons, and in the life of priests,” he told CNA April 5, adding that the scope is simply “to make them better at what they do.”
What the council wants from the missionaries, he said, is to place a strong emphasis on the sacrament of confession, and to promote their ministry through specific activities, particularly during major liturgical seasons such as Lent and Advent.
And with no clear end in sight to the missionary mandate, Bell said the idea is to continue having meetings on a regular basis to offer formation and time to share stories. So far, from the feedback they council has received, the missionaries “have a very, very strong impact,” he said.
For Fr. Roger Landry, a missionary of mercy who works for the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations in New York, the ministry of mercy is always needed in the Church, but is especially crucial in the modern global context.
Landry told CNA that both St. John Paul II and Pope Francis have emphasized that “we are living in a ‘kairos of mercy,’ a time in which God’s loving forgiveness is especially crucial.”
This, he said, is because “we’re living at a time in which unexpiated guilt is wreaking so much havoc.”
“After two World Wars and the Cold War, the Holocaust, the genocides in Armenia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, after so many atrocities from tyrannical governments, after the waterfalls of blood flowing from more than two billion abortions worldwide, after the sins that have destroyed so many families, after so much physical and sexual abuse, after lengthy crime logs in newspapers every day, after the scourge of terrorism, after so much hurt and pain, the terrible weight of collective guilt crushes not only individuals but burdens structures and whole societies.”
The modern world, he said, is like “one big Lady Macbeth, compulsively washing our hands to remove the blood from them, [but] there is no earthly detergent powerful enough to take the blemishes away.”
People can speak to psychiatrists and psychologists, but their words and advise can only help deal with guilt, “not eliminate it,” Landry said.
“We can confess ourselves to bartenders, but they can only dispense Absolut vodka, not absolution, and inebriation never brings expiation.”
There is also the attempt by many to try to escape reality through “distractions and addictions” such as sports, drugs, entertainment, food, power, materialism, lust and many other things, Landry said, but stressed that none of this “can adequately anesthetize the pain in our soul from the suffering we’ve caused or witnessed.”
“We’re yearning for a second, third or seventy-times-seventh chance. We’re pining for forgiveness, reconciliation, and a restoration of goodness. We’re hankering for a giant reset button for ourselves and for the world.”
Landry said his mandate has also impacted his work at the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the U.N., much of which is already dedicated to the works of mercy, such as caring for the poor, defending the vulnerable, feeding the hungry and seeking to provide education and care for those suffering due to war.
In addition to his work at the U.N., Landry said bishops have also sought him out and asked him to come to their dioceses to speak and hear confessions, and “thanks be to God, there has been a lot of fruit.”
Similarly, Fr. John Paul Zeller, a friar with the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word and a missionary of mercy from Birmingham, Ala., said he has had the opportunity to travel around the United States and offer talks and retreats centered on mercy, and has seen enormous fruits.
One of the things he has emphasized the most is reaching out to people who have been far from the Church or who have had a bad experience in confession, and have either left the Church or refused to go back to the sacrament as a result.
In comments to CNA, Zeller noted that when they were first commissioned in 2016, Pope Francis told them that people had been “lambasted” at times by priests in the confessional, and that this experience did a lot of damage.
“I really took that to heart,” Zeller said, explaining that there have been multiple times he has stood in front of a group and apologized for these bad experiences, saying “if anybody here has had a bad experience in the confessional, from childhood until now, I beg you in the name of Jesus Christ, I beg you in Jesus’ name and as a representative of our Holy Father, I beg your forgiveness.”
The results have been profound, not only in people returning to the sacrament, but in those seeking him out for spiritual advice or guidance.
“So many people are starving for a shepherd, starving for someone to show them love, show them that they care and to listen to them,” he said, adding that “it’s been such a privilege” to be put into situations where he is able to offer help to a person in real need.
However, Zeller stressed that mercy doesn’t mean a lack of justice. These two virtues, he said, are not opposed, but rather, according to the logic of God, they are “the same thing.”
“Sometimes we come across as thinking mercy is just being all sappy and not firm with people and not clear with people…. [But] when we’re exercising mercy, we need to exercise the virtue of justice too.”
In addition to talks and retreats, Fr. Devaney has turned to media to get the message of mercy out.
Though his primary ministry is carried out at a hospital, Devaney said that he and another missionary of mercy – Nigerian Fr. Augustine Dada, who is currently one of the missionaries serving in New York – decided to offer a special program dedicated to mercy on his SiriusXM radio show for Lent.
Looking forward, the missionaries voiced hope that a full list of all the Missionaries of Mercy would be made public so that people would know where to find one if needed.
They also expressed a desire for additional instruction on the technicalities of how to lift censures – penalties for certain delicts, or canonical “crimes” – which they have been given the faculty to remit. Some of the missionaries said they are uncertain about the process for remitting those penalties.
The missionaries were initially given the faculty to remit penalties for four of these types of delicts: profaning the Eucharistic species by taking them away or keeping them for a sacrilegious purpose; the use of physical force against the Roman Pontiff; the absolution of an accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment, (“thou shalt not commit adultery”) and, in limited circumstances, a direct violation against the sacramental seal by a confessor.
In an April 2017 letter confirming their mandate, the pope added an additional delict to the list, allowing the missionaries to remit the penalty associated with recording what a priest or penitent says in confession, and the diffusion of that the recording online.
Fr. Zeller told CNA that while he was in Rome for the commissioning of the missionaries during the jubilee, he was able to visit the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican court dealing with some cases of excommunication and with matters addressed in confession, where he got an explainer from an official on how remitting censures works.
For more than an hour, “I asked questions upon questions, and we went over the different censures,” Zeller said, adding that “to see how the Church deals with them and how much the Church deals with the salvation of souls was astounding to me.”
“I came away from there with a renewed sense of how much the Church cares about the soul,” he said, explaining that when the Penitentiary gets an inquiry from a priest involving a delict that incurred automatic excommunication, a response, remission, and penance are sent back within 24 hours.
“Nothing happens that quickly in the Church, nothing,” he continued. “Everything, on every level of the Church, everything takes so long…but when it comes to sin, when it comes to that restoring people to grace…I am just so grateful for…how much the Church cares about the salvation of souls.”
A response is “sent out in less than 24 hours. That’s saying a lot,” Zeller emphasized. He said he has had the opportunity to explain the process to other priests, and hopes that in the future, better formation will be offered in seminaries for how to handle these delicts if they are confessed.
However, while remitting censures is a part of their mandate, the missionaries agreed that it is not the most important part.
Fr. Devaney told CNA that the circumstances that incur censures are rare, and that while they have been given the faculty to remit them, “the core and heart of what [Pope Francis] wants is for us to just go and renew Catholics, in particular, with God’s mercy.”
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Deftly spoken, Mr. Altieri. Rupnik is every bit the “inveterate creep.”
In fact inveterate creepiness seems to be a resume enhancer in Bergoglio’s Dark Vatican.
Hopefully Jesus will have pity on his little ones who are wandering in confusion like sheep with inveterately creepy shepherds.
Accurate comment, dear ‘brineyman’’. Only let’s not forget their HYPOCRISY.
Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Joseph Sciambra encountered the unwelcome sign in the Church and so left. What has really changed since 2002? After all, a predator/abuser and a possible predator enabler were placed in charge of cleaning up Dodge City. Serial abusers have little to fear from consequences. The Church does not have a lock on the market of mercy however, but the Zulocks apparently went too far. The Islamic world seems unrestrained in putting the stick about. I wear a Star of David pin — Israel’s Old Testament justice horrifies establishments everywhere and so their cries for mercy. It’s as if a John Patrick Shanley or an equivalent were scripting the Vatican and its secular partners. Prison is one thing; death row confessionals would be something quite other. Jesus wept. He weeps alone.
I have come to the conclusion that high ranking members of the Catholic clergy are intrinsically incapable of a. telling the truth and, b. doing the right thing. In others words, these clergy have seriously disordered consciences; they actually believe the lies they tell and think that the evil they do are virtues.
Thank you, Mr. Altieri for, once again and in blunt language, connecting all the dots in this most recent chapter of stunningly repugnant moral turpitude by the Church’s high prelates and the Papa Pachamama who has coddled and protected them. Let’s be very honest. They are, one and all, “inveterate creeps”. The disturbing question I wish you would address is how a practicing Catholic can possibly be “in communion” with such degenerates and how they can in moral and canonical fact claim that they in fact hold the offices and prelatial dignities that they claimed. Even beyond that, is it possible to comprehend that each and all of them have spent years, decades, and even clerical lifetimes offering daily blasphemous and sacrilegious Masses?
“The answer appears to be . . . .”
Does, doesn’t it?
Thank you for this. Another pathetic PR stunt by a pontificate that answers to and uses sexually sick, powerful men. As if God is fooled…Our colossal Church crisis is at root a faith crisis.
Perhaps AI can help us connect the dots to further expose how these episcopal wolves appoint and cover for each other. And we can all be more attuned to the voices of victims.
There is Hell to pay…
Speaking of a faith crisis, why should Pope Francis seek justice for victims of episcopal sexual abuse when he can save the planet from “ecological sins”? Pope Jellyby
“St. Francis did not love humanity but men, so he did not love Christianity but Christ.” Chesterton
In “recent months,” according to the Pontiff Francis and his nunciator for Belgium, “grave new elements have come to light” in the case of the “incestuous-sodomist-predator-EXCELLENCY-EMERITUS” Vanghelgue, 14 years after his sex abuse of his 1st nephew was exposed in the Belgian newspapers, and 13 years after his sex abuse if his 2nd nephew was exposed.
At this very late stage in the story, the “rebuttable presumption” (as they say in the courtroom), is that a bishop sodomizing the boys of his own family is definitely NOT a grave offense in the eyes of the Pontiff Francis and many (perhaps most?) of our bishops.
A case in point to drive home this presumption is to remind ourselves that the (so-called) “Society of Jesus” would not and did not expel Reverend Rupnik for sexually abusing dozens of nuns. They would only expel him for disobeying an order they gave him.
So: demonic sex abuse of boys (and nuns, or anyone), and profaning the sacrament of Holy Orders, and undermining the foundation of respect wholesomely desired and given to faithful and holy priests, and defying the Commandments of Jesus Our King = NOT A GRAVE OFFENSE.
But: insubordination to the same Pontiffs and Bishops (who show their indifference to victims of the sex abuse, their disregard for faithful priests and bishops, and their contempt for the authority of Jesus), any INSUBORDINATION AGAINST THEM is what they hold to be a GRAVE OFFENSE.
This is the sum of what’s at stake for these narcissists: their egos, and the deference “owed to them” by “underlings,” are on the line.
Their concerns are the same as the senior management in the Belgian authorities and the University of Louvain: deference and decorum must be preserved.
CiM: A home run….no, a Grand Slam!
Or, ‘The first duty of the bureaucrat is to preserve the bureaucracy.’
How does McElroy become a cardinal with his disgraceful handling of Rachel Mastrogiacomo? Big Mac pays his promoter back by carrying the papal water and making a mess. McElroy, Vangheluwe, Daneels, Rupnik. Birds of a feather seem to a protected species in the Vatican.
Does “creepyness” come in degrees? Are we all also tainted with it? Is it possible for us to discern where we stand in relation to others in our relative culpability for our own “creepyness” I have observed that throwers of stones usually live in glass houses. How strange. Oh what fools we mortals be! 🫣 Cheer up for God loves us not for what we are, but for what we could be. Yes, the Church MUST Judge, but even the judge’s feet are planted in clay.
Dear James Connor, isn’t that the same excuse the Nazi collaborators relied on?
This comment will probably not pass muster, but – in many of these abuse cases, I’ve often asked myself this – wouldn’t a well-aimed kick have been of some benefit? Followed by #2 if necessary.
Methinks that such would have been more than appropriate in ‘the case of the creepy cardinal’.
The 1st task for Pope The Next will be to begin restoring the faith of the faithful in those who are supposed to be “watching” over the flock.
Can’t those who have been abused by clergy just make it public and perhaps such victims can join together in a class action suit and maybe the Catholic legal group led by Tom Fitton offer them free legal services. It’s worth a try. Also choose men of high standards mentally, emotionally and spiritually to form seminary students. And let all those teachers be closely monitored.
Florence: Yours is a great idea but here’s another: How about the men of the town just form a posse? That should have been done just after the 1st 12 year old boy was sodomized by a cleric.
Kind of a strong suggestion from a deacon, I would think.
If you would only wear a cowboy hat, your perspective would change.
The current rot in the Church calls for a spirited response.
A darn good suggestion, “I would think,” James Connor.
Basically, what DEBP is suggesting is that when a system runs amok it generally requires a feedback loop to stabilise it.
So let’s get conversing about how we loyal-to-Christ Catholics can provide regular and persevering corrective feedback to manage the scandalously unChristian, unCatholic clergy misfeasances and malfeasances. Maybe that should be the first item on the agendas of all our current Church synods . . .
Reportage of clerical sexual abuse has to my knowledge never included the element of sacrilege the Rupnik case has — The criminal behavior of this perverted wannabe is crowned by his abuse of the elements of the Holy Eucharist in his concupiscent activity. Every tile of his mosaics should be ground to dust.
Get the jackhammers.
Yes, there have been elements of sacrilege in other cases. Although I doubt anyone has toted up a global score, I recall hearing of instances of perversion practiced on the parish altar. And the two cases of which I have personal knowledge happened in the context of catechism class for little girls.
Granted, it would be expensive to remove and replace Rupik’s hideous “art,” surely it could at least be plastered or painted over? The distinction between sinful artist and his art only fits when the art itself is beautiful. This stuff ain’t, regardless of its appeal to Those in High Places.
The laity in the pews have become numb to all this sexual abuse of minors. They do not trust the hierarchy any more. The damage has been done and will take decades to repair.
Will: God’s memory last much longer than man’s.
Armageddon, Rev 16, is a battle between Yahweh and all who who reject his sovereignty.
Yahweh wins.
All. No matter what church or religion they claim.
Going back to the Garden, we find that obedience to the rule of the sovereign is acceptance of his rulership. (“If you eat from it you will die.”)
Elsewhere, in case we missed the point, “The wages of sin is death.”
The answer to all our problems is God’s Kingdom. Per Ps 37:29, is that a good deal? If so, you should investigate your standing before it. Just to make sure, right?
There will be many surprised, as noted at Mt 7:21 ff. One surprise not mentioned there will be for those who have never considered this question or its answer: How many arks did Noah build?
All this is clarifying background to my brief answer to your comment in re “decades”.
Brief answer: Please read Mt 24:14; we don’t have decades. That should make us happy, if we’re sure we’re on God’s side.
Otherwise …
Mt 18:15-17.
From the Son of God.
Four steps; three verses.
Even for the most serious sins, notice the first goal: gain your brother.
Second goal, fair play: ‘two or three witnesses’; first-hand knowledge understood.
And, at each step, repentance and positive change also understood, to go for the next step.
Third goal, keep the congregation, and Yahweh’s name, clean. “hallowed be thy name”, isn’t it?
By now this malefactor is likely the subject of very public knowledge. So the last goal is to disassociate him and the congregation from each other.
In the time and place when our Lord spoke these words, they could mean only excommunication, (disfellowshipping in some venues).
None of these steps should take anything like 14 years.
I read recently that some Catholic site had decided to continue installing Rupnik mosaics at its site. I don’t remember where. But I am appalled. A bare wall with his mosaics ripped out and ground into dust would be most fitting. I simply couldn’t go to a place where his work is on the walls, and I certainly couldn’t worship there.
And it says everything that it took a national government in a country the Pope wants to visit to force the Vatican to do something about Vangheluwe’s status. He’ll is very real and very real people go there. Woe to those who call good evil and evil good. Please pray for the world and the country.
At this erra in church history, it is hard not to conclude that we are being shepherded by a large number of hired hands, who surrender some sheep to the wolves to ensure their own comfort, safety, status, or agenda.
One must not forget that Danneels was a member of the Saint Gallen mafia and that he boasted he was among those who lobbyied for the election of Jorge Bergoglio during the last conclave in stark contravening against the “Universis Dominici Gregis” instructions issued by the last pope JP II, punished by an “ipso facto” excommunication.
Too little, too late. This Pontificate’s credibility on the sexual abuse issue has been irrevocably destroyed due to Rupnik, Znachetta, and McCarrick. No reform will come as long as Francis remains Pope, which will hopefully not be long.
So many of you, in reply to OPs like this one, remain in your Catholic Church afterwards, it’s apparent.
Why?
Some sources estimate there are over 20,000 religions/churches in the world. Why not look around? Some will reply, ‘But the RCC was founded by Christ and is therefore the only true faith. My response is, ‘If he can’t protect it (and you) any better than he has, then your faith may be seriously misplaced.’
How sad.
Dear Doug, read The New Testament [esp. 1 Peter 1:6 & 7]
There’ve been bad apples in The Church from its start, nearly 2,000 years ago.
Only pagans demand: “What can GOD do for me!”
Catholics & other true Christians ask: “What can I do for God and for others.”
We “remain in your Catholic Church” because we experience the love of God in all things, & greatly desire to have its fullness, face-to-face eternally.
Give it a try, dear Doug. ‘Tis not to be missed.
Ever in the grace & mercy of King Jesus Christ; love & blessings from marty
My response is, ‘If [Christ] can’t protect it (and you) any better than he has, then your faith may be seriously misplaced.’
How sad.
A highly illustrative case of total misunderstanding, dear Doug!
Jesus Christ, THE LORD, is fully protecting His own, who persevere in this world, unto an eternity of bliss (life that is really Life), where the hurtful things of this earthly life will not even be a bad dream.
“Son, remember that in this life you received good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is being comforted in Heaven, while you are in agony.” see Luke 16:25.
Dear Doug, never forget: “He who laughs last, laughs best!”