World Mission Sunday is October 19th
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The annual World Mission Sunday celebration will be observed on the weekend of October 18-19, 2025. Each year on the next-to-last weekend of October, we are reminded that we, along with all the Christian faithful, are called to share in the Church’s missionary work in some way.
This year’s World Mission Sunday theme is Missionaries of Hope Among All Peoples, which is most appropriate as we continue to celebrate this Jubilee Year of Hope. In a message given on May 9, 2025, the day after his election to the papacy, our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, stated, “Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent […] These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed.”
Next year will mark 100 years since Pope Pius XI instituted World Mission Sunday in 1926. This year’s celebration presents us, along with the Church throughout the world, with the opportunity to provide aid to 1,124 dioceses worldwide that cannot sustain themselves because they are too poor, young, or actively persecuted.
Your gifts will go to support and sustain priests, religious, and lay pastoral leaders in mission dioceses in Asia, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and parts of Latin America and Europe as we continue to build the Church and serve the poor.
With gratitude for your prayerful support of our sisters and brothers in mission territories around the world, I am
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Gregory Parkes
Bishop of Saint Petersburg
To learn more about World Mission Sunday and the communities supported by the collection, please go to the Pontifical Mission Societies’ website at this link
