Notre Dame Priest Receives Mandate From Pope

(Image courtesy of University of Notre Dame)

The Rev. Joseph Corpora from the University of Notre Dame has been selected to be a Missionary of Mercy. The selection comes from a mandate Corpora received from Pope Francis.

Missionaries of Mercy are about 800 priests worldwide who have been selected by the pope to be special confessors and "living signs" of God’s forgiveness during the Holy Year of Mercy. Corpora will travel to Rome to meet with the pope and be commissioned on February 10, Ash Wednesday, in a celebration at St. Peter’s Basilica.

"I am very excited, grateful and humbled by the Holy Father’s invitation," Father Corpora said, "and I hope everyone at Notre Dame will pray for me that I might do some good in spreading the mercy of God by being a person of mercy and compassion. I know something of God’s mercy because my deepest self-definition is that I am a sinner whose sins are forgiven. God has been so merciful to me."

Corpora is the director of university-school partnerships for the university’s Alliance for Catholic Education. He also works in Notre Dame’s campus ministry, serving as chaplain to Latino students.