On October 24, 2024, in recognition of the Conventual Franciscans’ 250th anniversary of service as penitentiaries at St. Peter’s Basilica, our friars were welcomed into the Consistory Hall for a private audience with Pope Francis, the first pope to bear the name of our founder, our Seraphic Father St. Francis.
This invaluable and discreet ministry of reconciliation was entrusted to our Order in 1774, by Pope Clement XIV, our confrere, through his Motu Proprio “Miserator Dominus” dated August 10, 1774. This document established us as Vatican Penitentiaries in perpetuity.
Pope Francis welcomed the friars of the College of Penitentiaries, together with the Vicar General, Friar Jan MACIEJOWSKI, and several friars from the General Houses in Rome.
The pope reflected on the sacrament of reconciliation, emphasizing that a penitentiary must himself be penitent and humble. He must be a person who listens, who doesn’t talk too much, who doesn’t act as a psychiatrist or a judge, because God is merciful. “Our Father never tires of loving and his eyes never grow weary of watching the road to his home to see if the son who left and was lost is returning (…) This Father also does not tire of loving the other son who, though staying at home with him the whole time, does not share in his mercy, in his compassion” (Homily of Pope Francis, Vatican Basilica, Friday, March 28, 2014).
“And your presence in this context is important. For the faithful and pilgrims, because it enables them to encounter the Lord of mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Dear friends, forgive everything, everything, everything. Do it always: forgive everything! We are here to forgive (…) the Church welcomes them first of all as a community of the saved, forgiven, who believe, hope and love in the light and with the strength of God’s tenderness.”
The pope also thanked our penitentiary friars for their service in St. Peter’s Basilica. It is estimated that more than forty thousand people pass through the basilica every day. It is true that not all are Catholic, but it is still a phenomenal number. The pope himself goes to our friars for the comfort of confession: “You do well! Thank you for being, in the heart of the Church, ministers of the sacramental presence of God-Love.”
There is a fixed number of fourteen penitentiary friars. Today they are: the Rector of the College of Vatican Penitentiaries, Friar Vincenzo COSATTI (from Switzerland); Friar Roman BANASIK (from Poland); Friar Rocco RIZZO (from Italy); Friar Giovanni M. CHIU (from Taiwan); Friar Ryszard PAROL (from Poland); Friar Giorgio ATTARD (from Malta); Friar Roman WADACH (from Poland); Friar Kazimierz WIĘSEK (from Poland); Friar Marek KRUPA (from Poland); Friar Sebastian PENDANATHU THOMAS (from India); Friar Iulian MISARIU (from Romania); Friar Manoel Fernando Maria DA SILVA (from Brazil); and Friar John VOYTEK (from the United States). Unfortunately, the fourteenth is missing; he returned to the House of the Father two months ago. Friar Javier Antonio RONDÓN (from Colombia) was only fifty-two. Requiescat in Pace.
Friar Vincenzo COSATTI, Rector of the College of Vatican Penitentiaries
