Msgr Esau Joseph now a Missionary of Mercy

During the Mass for the Solemnity of St Joseph, Msgr Esau Joseph was officially made a Missionary of Mercy.

Missionaries of Mercy are priests—diocesan or religious—who have been commissioned by the Holy Father to give particular emphasis to the duty shared by all priests to “hear confessions and preach on behalf of and promote the Sacrament of Reconciliation.”

They are to be an intentional, visible expression of the mercy of God, which is at the heart of the priesthood and all of Catholic life. In addition, Missionaries of Mercy have the authority, granted by the Holy Father, to pardon these sins reserved to the Holy See:

• Profaning the Eucharistic species by taking them away or keeping them for a sacrilegious purpose
• Use of physical force against the Roman Pontiff
• Absolution of an accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue
• A direct violation against the sacramental seal by a confessor
• The recording by means of a technical device of what the priest or the penitent says in a Sacramental Confession (whether real or simulated), or the divulgation of such a recording through the means of social communication

Pope Francis established the Missionaries of Mercy in 2015 with the papal bull Misericordiae vultus, proclaiming the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which ended in November 2016. Many thought that the initiative would end with the Jubilee Year but the Pope extended the Missionaries of Mercy’s mandate.