Pope asks Catholics to support missions with prayer, donations

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In separate videos recorded in English, Spanish and Italian, Pope Leo XIV urged every Catholic parish around the globe to observe World Mission Sunday Oct. 19 and take up the annual collection that supports Catholic missionary work.

"When I served as a missionary priest and then bishop in Peru, I saw first-hand how the faith, the prayer and the generosity shown on World Mission Sunday can transform entire communities," said the Chicago-born pope. As an Augustinian priest, he served in the missions in Peru from 1985 to 1999 and then as apostolic administrator and later bishop of Chiclayo from 2014 to 2023. 

In the video message, released Oct. 13, Pope Leo encouraged all Catholics to pray on World Mission Sunday "particularly for missionaries and the fruitfulness of their apostolic labors."

"Your prayers, your support will help spread the Gospel, provide for pastoral and catechetical programs, help to build new churches, and care for the health and educational needs of our brothers and sisters in mission territories," the pope said.

According to the Pontifical Mission Societies USA, funds collected on World Mission Sunday support: "82,498 seminarians in formation; 258,540 religious sisters providing care and catechesis; (and) 844,000 catechists sharing the faith at the grassroots."

The funds also help sustain "12,000 health care centers; 8,750 orphanages and homes for the elderly" and have helped with the construction of 570 new churches, it said.

In the video, Pope Leo asked Catholics to "reflect together on our baptismal call to be 'missionaries of hope among the peoples,'" and to commit themselves again "to the sweet and joyful task of bringing Christ Jesus our hope to the ends of the earth."

The annual papal message for World Mission Sunday is released in February. Pope Francis had chosen "Missionaries of Hope Among All Peoples" as the theme for the 2025 celebration.