Missionaries of Mercy
Pope Francis created the role of the Missionaries of Mercy during the 2016 Jubilee of Mercy, a service that has continued since then and has been institutionalized in the new Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, "Praedicate evangelium", under the section focusing on evangelization.
The appointment of a Missionary is exclusively reserved to the Pope. The Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization is responsible for watching over the exercise of their ministry.
The role of Missionaries of Mercy comprises three primary aspects: preaching about mercy, making that mercy as available as possible to as many as possible through the Sacrament of Confession, and becoming ever more an icon of the Father’s merciful love and the Church’s maternal compassionate solicitude.
The Missionaries of Mercy have been given two special faculties that are usually unavailable to priests. First, they are not be limited in geographic location in terms of hearing confessions. Second, they are able to absolve the ecclesiastical penalties and guilt associated with the following five crimes/sins, normally reserved to the Apostolic See:
- Profaning the Holy Eucharist by taking the Eucharistic species away or keeping them for a sacrilegious purpose
- Using physical force against the Pope
- Absolving a priest who has sought to forgive someone in confession with whom he has committed a sexual sin.
- Absolving a priest who has directly violated the sacramental seal of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation, revealing something a penitent communicated to him.
- Absolving someone who has recorded with a technical device what a priest or penitent has said in the Sacrament of Confession (whether real or simulated, meaning whether it was an actual confession or whether someone was impersonating a priest or penitent), or absolving someone who has published and spread such a recording through the means of social communication.
Our Diocese of Colorado Springs Missionaries of Mercy
Every priest is called by ordination to be an “ambassador of Christ” with regard to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The Holy Father’s mandate of the Missionaries of Mercy, in a special way, provides for an outreach to brother priests, since several of the reserved sins that Missionaries have been given the faculties to lift concern those only priests, or predominantly priests, might commit. This indicates a special papal solicitude for Missionaries to be instruments of reconciliation for their priest brothers.
These priests are also available, schedule permitting, to help facilitate your pastoral initiatives that focus on conversion and divine mercy, with a particular attention given to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Please contact a Missionary of Mercy directly for more information or visit the website.
Los Misioneros de la Misericordia
Los Misioneros de la Misericordia son sacerdotes que han sido comisionados por el Santo Padre para dar un énfasis particular, al deber de todos los sacerdotes, de “escuchar confesiones, promover y predicar en nombre del Sacramento de la Reconciliación”. Deben ser una expresión intencional y visible de la misericordia de Dios que está en el corazón del sacerdocio. Ellos, además tienen la autoridad, concedida por el Santo Padre, de perdonar estos pecados reservados a la Santa Sede:
La profanación de las especies Eucarísticas quitándolas o reteniéndolas con fines sacrílegos.
El uso de la fuerza física contra el Pontífice Romano.
La absolución de un cómplice en un pecado contra el sexto mandamiento del Decálogo.
Una violación directa contra el sello sacramental por parte de un confesor.
La grabación por medio de un dispositivo técnico de lo que el sacerdote o el penitente dice en la confesión sacramental (ya sea real o simulada), o la divulgación de tal grabación a través de los medios sociales de comunicación.
Para más detalles y información de contacto: