More than 22 million Catholics across the globe make up a network dedicated to praying daily for the challenges facing humanity and the Church, uniting their prayers with Pope Leo XIV's monthly intentions.
The Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network is a pontifical foundation known for its Pray with the Pope campaign through which the Holy Father announces his month's intention in a video message.
While the pope "has an endless list" of prayer intentions, he chooses 12 to offer for each month of the year, Father Cristóbal Fones, SJ, the international director of the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, explained in an interview with "EWTN News In Depth."
In order to do so, the network will "help the pope to discern the intentions a year ahead," Fones explained. "So we ask many people — all the dicasteries and our national directors — to give us some proposals, and we offer to him lots of them … about 20 of them."
The Holy Father "takes some time to pray on these proposals" and then chooses the 12 intentions for the upcoming year in advance.
"So we published, for instance, the 2027 monthly intentions last February. So you can already know what we are about to pray for next year too, so that we can have some time to make the translations, to create the materials in Indonesian, Hindi, Swahili, Guarani, and so on."
Pope Leo has continued the tradition of Pope Francis, who recorded the first video of the monthly intentions in 2016, but the current pontiff has put his own take on it.
Pope Leo is "not only asking us to pray but praying himself for the monthly intention and inviting us to join him in prayer," Fones said. "That's why we call this campaign 'Pray with the Pope,' because he's the first one interceding for the needs of humanity, and he is inviting us through this campaign to do it with him."
"Some people may watch the video and participate with him by praying. Others can do it [on] their own. But the important thing is to be united in this network of hearts — compassionate hearts for the needs of the world."
Pope Leo is also "constantly asking us to pray for contextual … prayer intentions, like a flood or an earthquake in Venezuela, for instance," Fones said.
All these prayer intentions are then updated "in what we call the pope's prayer profile," Fones said. It consists of "all the requests for prayer that he normally does, whether on Sunday in the Angelus or on Wednesdays during the general audience."
In order to aid the Holy Father, the network is run by a team of an administrative council appointed by the Holy See, international coordinators, formation leaders, and communications teams.
The network "is a participation in the mission of the Church by offering ourselves through prayer, service, and spiritual formation," Fones said. Made up of Catholics in more than 90 countries, the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network is "a very old pontifical work with more than 180 years."
The network started in 1844 and was first called the Apostleship of Prayer. It was later renamed and established as a formal Vatican foundation in 2020 to support Christ's mission of compassion for the world across continents and cultures.
Call for prayers to respect life
Pope Leo's prayer intention for the month of July is for respect for human life in all circumstances.
The Holy Father drew attention to the importance of the intention when he dined with 200 vulnerable people on July 11.
"Having a lunch is just to show a sign [of] what we actually have to do with one another, to sit at the same table, to recognize our common dignity, because we are all sons and daughters of the same God. And when you understand that, you treat others as equal in dignity," Fones said.
"We may think differently. We may have different positions in life — opinions, backgrounds, stories — but we are all sons and daughters of God. So when you recognize that you can treat others as brothers and sisters, even if you disagree with them," he said.
