By Gary Gately
Pope Leo XIV urged the faithful throughout the world today to support the Catholic Church’s missions, saying, “Let us commit ourselves anew to the sweet and joyful task of bringing Christ Jesus our Hope to the ends of the Earth.”
In separate videos recorded in English, Spanish and Italian, Pope Leo delivered the message ahead of the 99th World Mission Sunday this weekend, “when the whole Church prays, united, particularly for missionaries and the fruitfulness of their apostolic labors.”
“I urge every Catholic parish in the world to take part in World Mission Sunday,” the leader of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church said. “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.”
Recalling serving as a missionary priest and bishop for two decades in Peru, Leo said, “I saw first-hand how the faith, the prayer and the generosity shown on World Mission Sunday can transform entire communities.”
This year’s theme, “Missionaries of Hope Among the Peoples,” seems especially fitting, coming during the 2025 Jubilee Year, which the late Pope Francis officially declared in May 2024 in the papal Bull of Indiction, titled “Spes non confundit” (“Hope does not disappoint”).
Pope Pius XI established World Mission Sunday in 1926 as a day of prayer for Catholic foreign missionary efforts, coordinated by Pontifical Mission Societies.
The annual global World Mission Sunday collections support more than 1,100 mission territories, Pontifical Mission Societies USA says. “On this day,” it adds, “every parish, in every diocese, in every country, joins in prayer and giving to ensure that missionaries can continue their vital work — building churches, forming priests, supporting catechists, and serving communities in need.”
Catholics in Western nations most of the financial support to the Church’s projects in traditional mission territories, including in parts of Africa and Asia where Catholicism is booming and vocations soaring.
The Catholic Church dedicates the entire month of October to the Church’s missions and to missionaries.
In a May 22 audience with the Pontifical Mission Societies at the Vatican, Pope Leo, the first U.S.-born pontiff, said: “A renewed focus on the Church’s unity and universality corresponds precisely to the authentic charism of the Pontifical Mission Societies…. Dear friends, our celebration of this Holy Year challenges all of us to be “pilgrims of hope.” Taking up the words that Pope Francis chose as the theme for this year’s World Mission Day, I would conclude by encouraging you to continue to be ‘missionaries of hope among all peoples.’”
In his first apostolic exhortation, “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”), Francis wrote: “Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are ‘disciples’ and ‘missionaries,’ but rather that we are always ‘missionary disciples.’”