08/01/2026
PRAYER AS A BRIDGE: "PRAY WITH THE PAPA" INITIATIVE IS BORN
The initiative “Pray with the Pope” is born to create a real network of communion in a time marked by conflicts, divisions and digital frenzy. Presented in the Press Room of the Holy See on Wednesday, January 7, it involves the Dicastery for Communications and the Pope’s World Prayer Network. The idea is simple but powerful: to allow anyone, wherever they are, to join the Pope's prayer every month, recorded in the chapel of St. Pilgrim in the Vatican.
Prefect Paolo Ruffini explained that this proposal wants to give people back a slow, protected space, where prayer becomes a way to stitch what appears torn in the world. In an age dominated by speed and constant scrolling, shared prayer becomes a countercurrent act, capable of truly uniting, not just virtually.
Each month the Pope proposes a different intention, related to the challenges of the world or of the Church: from peace to disarm, from evangelization to social issues. The chosen language is that of contemporary digital communication, in continuation with “The Pope’s Video”, which has been reaching millions of people for ten years.
Father Cristóbal Fones, director of the World Prayer Network, called the initiative an open door: a universal invitation to pray with the Pope in a synodal way. Testimonies from young people from Indonesia and Côte d’Ivoire show how this prayer network feels like part of a global community, capable of overcoming distances and cultural differences.
The Pope himself has recorded in advance the videos of the intentions of the coming months and, through his social media profiles, invites people to carve out time to pray, taking him away from the constant distraction of social media. It’s a way to breathe a different air, that of God’s Word, and to find an inner center in the midst of the confusion of today.
“Pray with the Pope” is accessible on the website and digital platforms of the Pope’s World Prayer Network, which together with the Dicastery for Communication intends to give new impetus to the dissemination of prayer intentions, faithful to the original mission but with increasingly cutting-edge languages and tools. January’s video, besides English, Spanish and Italian, is also subtitled in other languages. The Pope’s World Prayer Network is a Pontifical Opera entrusted to the Company of Jesus, it is present in over 90 countries and brings together a spiritual community of more than 22 million people. At the center of this mission are the Pope’s monthly prayer intentions, which invite to focus on the challenges of humanity and the mission of the Church.
With the first prayer intention of the year, Pope Leo XIV invites us to rediscover the transforming power of God’s Word, the Word in which “we find the light...
