Address of Pope Leo to Pontifical Mission SocietieAddress of Pope Leo to Pontifical Mission Societies
Clementine Hall – Thursday, 22 May 2025
“Our world, wounded by war, violence and injustice,
needs to hear the Gospel message of God’s love
and to experience the reconciling power of Christ’s grace”
Your Eminence, Your Excellencies,
General Secretaries, National Directors and Personnel of the Pontifical Mission Societies,
Dear brothers and sisters,
I warmly welcome all of you who have come together from more than one hundred and twenty countries to participate the annual General Assembly of the Pontifical Mission Societies.
I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to you and your associates for your dedicated service, which is indispensable to the Church’s evangelization mission, as I can personally testify from my own pastoral experience during the years of my service in Peru.
The Pontifical Mission Societies are in fact the “primary means” of awakening the missionary responsibility of all the baptized and of supporting ecclesial communities in areas where the Church is young (cf. Decree Ad Gentes, 38).
We see this in the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, which provides aid for pastoral and catechetical programs, the building of new churches, health, and educational needs in mission territories.
The Society of the Holy Childhood, also, supports Christian education programs for children, as well as providing for their basic needs and protection.
Similarly, the Society of St. Peter the Apostle helps to foster missionary vocations, both priestly and religious,
while the Missionary Union works to form priests, men and women religious and all the People of God for the missionary activity of the Church.
The promotion of apostolic zeal among the People of God remains an essential aspect of the renewal of the Church as envisioned by the Second Vatican Council and is all the more urgent in our own time.
Our world, wounded by war, violence and injustice, needs to hear the Gospel message of God’s love and to experience the reconciling power of Christ’s grace.
In this sense, the Church herself, in all her members, is increasingly called to be “a missionary Church that opens its arms to the world, proclaims the word … and becomes a leaven of harmony for humanity” (Homily, Mass for the inauguration of the Pontificate, 18 May 2025).
We are to bring to all peoples, indeed to all creatures, the Gospel promise of true and lasting peace, which is possible because, in the words of Pope Francis, “the Lord has overcome the world and its constant conflict ‘by making peace through the blood of his Cross’” (Evangelii Gaudium, 229).
Therefore, we see the importance of fostering in all the baptized a spirit of missionary discipleship and a sense of the urgency to bring Christ to all people.
In this regard, I would like to thank you and your associates for your efforts each year in promoting World Mission Sunday on the second-to-last Sunday of October, which is a great help to me in my concern for the Churches in territories under the care of the Dicastery for Evangelization.
Today, as in the days after Pentecost, the Church, led by the Holy Spirit, continues her journey through history with confidence, joy and courage, proclaiming the name of Jesus and the salvation comes from faith in the saving truth of the Gospel.
The Pontifical Mission Societies are an important part of this great effort.
In their work of coordinating missionary formation and animating the missionary spirit at the local level, I ask the National Directors to give priority to visiting dioceses, parishes and communities, thus helping the faithful to understand the fundamental importance of missions and of supporting our brothers and sisters in those areas of our world where the Church is young and growing.
Before concluding these words with you this morning, I would like to reflect with you on two distinctive elements of your identity as Pontifical Mission Societies.
They can be described as, communion and universality.
As Societies committed to sharing in the missionary mandate of the Pope and the College of Bishops, you are called to cultivate and further promote within your members the vision of the Church as the communion of believers, enlivened by the Holy Spirit, who enables us to enter into the perfect communion and harmony of the blessed Trinity.
Indeed, it is in the Trinity that all things find their unity.
This dimension of our Christian life and mission is close to my heart and is reflected in the words of St. Augustine whom I chose for my episcopal ministry and now for my papal ministry: In Illo uno unum (translated: In Him alone, one).
Christ is our Savior and in him we are one, one family of God, beyond the rich diversity of our languages, cultures and experiences.
The appreciation of our communion as members of the Body of Christ naturally opens us to the universal dimension of the Church’s evangelizing mission and inspires us to transcend the boundaries of our individual parishes, dioceses and nations, in order to share with every nation and people the surpassing richness of the knowledge of Jesus Christ (cf. Phil 3:8).
A renewed focus on the unity and universality of the Church’s corresponds precisely to the authentic charism of the Pontifical Mission Societies.
As such, it should inspire the process of renewal of the statutes which you have initiated.
In this regard, I express my confidence that this process will confirm the members of the Societies throughout the world in their vocation to be a leaven of missionary zeal within the People of God.
Dear friends, our celebration of this Holy Year challenges all of us to be “pilgrims of hope.”
Taking up the words chosen by Pope Francis as the theme for this year’s World Mission Day, I would like to conclude by encouraging you to continue to be “missionaries of hope among all peoples.”
I commend you, your benefactors and all those associated with your important work to the loving intercession of Mary, the Mother of the Church, and I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of lasting joy and peace in the Lord.s
