PROVIDENCE — St. Pius V Parish is providing a unique opportunity this Lent for all who wish to confess their sins, thanks to a Dominican priest with a special mission straight from the Vatican.
Along with being the pastor of St. Pius, located across the street from Providence College, Father John Maria Devaney O.P. is also a Missionary of Mercy. It’s an order created by Pope Francis to promote the sacrament of Reconciliation and the mercy of God, who wishes to meet sinners wherever they are in their faith journey.
“In light of the Jubilee Year of Hope, I wanted to offer more confessions during Lent,” Father Devaney explained. “Since the closure of the Franciscan Friars’ [St. Francis Chapel and City Ministry Center in downtown Providence], who for many years were like the city’s confessional, St. Pius and the Dominican Friars and my predecessor started offering confessions seven days a week here at the parish.”
As such, Father Devaney wanted to keep that tradition going. He and his fellow Dominicans from PC have created a House of Mercy, meaning they’re offering confession every day of the week until Easter. With one month left until then, Father Devaney said he already has enough proof that his campaign is working. He said many people are coming to confession during this time, which serves as a great opportunity for those for whom it has been decades since they’ve received absolution.
There are about 1,000 Missionaries of Mercy across the world and only 125 in the U.S., Father Devaney said. He’s only one of two in Rhode Island alongside Father Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, who’s also a Dominican. Not all of the missionaries are Dominicans, however; they can come from any religious order, whether it be Franciscans, Jesuits, Salesians, etc., all of whom have the same goal of spreading mercy through confession and preaching. There are also several diocesan priests who are missionaries of mercy.
Every few years, Pope Francis has invited all of the missionaries to Rome for a dedicated audience. The first one happened shortly after he became Pope and created the order. The second was in 2018, the third in 2022, and Father Devaney is headed to Rome this week for the fourth meeting.
All Father Devaney knows for sure, however, is that it hasn’t been canceled. He is hopeful that his trip will still be fruitful, as he’s heard firsthand how dedicated Pope Francis is to mercy. He said that becoming a Missionary of Mercy has been a sometimes uncertain but welcome surprise to his vocation. When he applied to become one of these missionaries shortly after being ordained, the Vatican hadn’t released much information about what this type of commitment would entail.
“I thought we would just maybe hear extra confessions wherever we were assigned or maybe we would give a couple of talks on mercy,” Father Devaney said. “We got this letter calling us to Rome for Ash Wednesday 2016, where the Holy Father was going to have an audience with us and commission us to go out for the Jubilee Year.”
In the months after, the newly-elected Pope Francis declared an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy in 2016. The Missionaries of Mercy was one of his core initiatives, where he directed his appointees to commit to hearing confessions and to serve as “personal witnesses of God’s closeness and of his way of loving.” The Pope also granted his missionaries an extraordinary authority, allowing them to remit certain ecclesiastical penalties, incurred due to more grave sins, ordinarily reserved to the Holy See.
“Of course, I was kind of in disbelief,” Father Devaney said. “I had no expectation that we were going to be commissioned and given faculties. It was very, very formal.”
Despite this fairly open-ended directive, Father Devaney likened his determination to the parable of the talents, never wanting to return to Pope Francis empty-handed. The House of Mercy, while a simple gesture, is the latest fruit he plans to return with. In the past, the fruit was his Sirius XM radio show, Word to Life, which airs Fridays at 1 p.m., on channel 129. On the show, he talks with a wide variety of other Catholics, priests, and missionaries about the weekly Gospel, a simple but effective format.
Father Devaney has only been doing parish work for about a year and a half. Before that, he was a chaplain at a New York hospital, which was a much different experience.
Despite the challenges of hospital work, diving into a parish role had its own learning curve. However, Father Devaney said he’s discovered a love of long-term formation with his parishioners and that it’s been rewarding to watch their faith grow over time.
“I may go back to [hospital work] one day, but coming to a parish and being a pastor, you get to be with people for a longer period of time,” Father Devaney said. You’re with people as they’re growing in their lives, whether they’re elderly or young children or families or married couples. You’re kind of in the middle of life.”
Visit the parish website at www.spvchurch.org for the schedule and for more information.
To learn more about the Missionaries of Mercy and their initiatives, visit www.missionariesofmercyusa.org.
