'Mercy Bus' draws hundreds of lapsed English Catholics back to active faith
February 26, 2016
A "Mercy Bus" offering opportunities for Confession has drawn several hundred people back to the active practice of the faith in the Diocese of Salford, England.
The Mercy Bus, an initiative for the Year of Mercy, parks in a neighborhood of Manchester, or one of the nearby towns, each Saturday. Volunteers offer shoppers gifts of miraculous medals. Priests are available to talk or to hear Confessions. Father Frankie Mulgrew, one of the priests involved in the project, said that the response has "outpassed expectations."
More than 400 people visited the Mercy Bus during the first two weeks of the program, and priests reported that they had heard many confessions of people who had not been active Catholics, in some cases "for decades."
Because of the success of the program, the Mercy Bus, which had been planned as a Lenten campaign, will continue operating through the end of the Jubilee Year.
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