{"id":33978,"date":"2026-04-01T13:58:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/how-does-pope-leo-choose-his-monthly-prayer-intentions\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T13:58:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:58:43","slug":"how-does-pope-leo-choose-his-monthly-prayer-intentions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/04\/01\/how-does-pope-leo-choose-his-monthly-prayer-intentions\/","title":{"rendered":"How does Pope Leo choose his monthly prayer intentions?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Leo XIV “recorded” hispray with the pope<\/a>videos every month, but how does he choose the intentions he wants the church to pray for?<\/p>\n

“These are absolutely the Pope’s intentions; however, he does it in a very synodal manner,” Father Crist\u00f3bal Fons, SJ, international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (PWPN), told EWTN News after gathering input from multiple sources.<\/p>\n

The Prayer Network, established as a Vatican entity by Pope Francis in 2018, recently began a lengthy consultation process with its national directors and members of the Roman Curia in 94 countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, we received about 300 proposals in different languages,\u201d Fons said. \u201cWe classified them, we summarized them, and then the international office (of the Prayer Network) proposed 16 of them to facilitate the work of the Pope.\u201d<\/p>\n

He further said, “In December, I passed them these 16 proposals… They put forward another proposal which was not part of the (original) proposals and changed the order.”<\/p>\n

“He’s very involved in the process. It’s important to him,” he said.<\/p>\n

Each month, Pope Leo records three versions \u2013 English, Italian and Spanish \u2013 of his monthly prayer intentions.<\/p>\n

“It’s a lot of work,” the PWPN director told EWTN News. “He’s committed to it because he knows it’s important and because he wants to pray with people.”<\/p>\n

According to Fons, Pope Leo is continuing the tradition of Pope Francis, who recorded the first video of monthly intentions in 2016, but the current pope has put his seal of approval on the practice.<\/p>\n

“(Pope Leo) wanted to invite people not only to pray for their intentions but also to pray with them,” he said. “So he wanted a video where he was praying and people could connect with him.”<\/p>\n

“He’s teaching us how to pray at the same time,” Fons said, “saying ‘Hello’ to the Lord, pausing a little, and explaining the meaning of each word.”<\/p>\n

Fons said Pope Leo asked the global network to help people develop “friendship” with God through the various multimedia resources they offer.<\/p>\n

“He told me, ‘Please teach people to pray,'” Fons said. \u201cHe is very conscious that we can be Catholic but not have that kind of relationship with Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said, “Prayer is not something we do or something we say, but it is a relationship we build \u2013 not with something \u2013 but with someone.”<\/p>\n

In addition to the “Pray with the Pope” campaign, the Vatican Foundation also offers a nine-step spirituality program called “path to heart<\/a>“<\/p>\n

At Leo’s request, PWPN launched the “Pray with the Pope” campaign in January with the desire to teach people “intercessory prayer”, which focuses on “the challenges of Christ and humanity”.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe closer we are to the heart of Jesus, the closer we are to the pain and suffering of the world that are at the core of his heart,\u201d Fons said.<\/p>\n

He said, “The important thing is to be compassionate about the challenges we face around the world, which are clearly in the heart of the Pope, just as (he) is in the heart of so many people suffering from those problems, and … certainly in the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leo XIV “recorded” hispray with the popevideos every month, but how does he choose the intentions he wants the church to pray for? “These are absolutely the Pope’s intentions; however, he does it in a very synodal manner,” Father Crist\u00f3bal Fons, SJ, international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (PWPN), told EWTN News after<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1846,13732,249,5413,248,100],"class_list":{"0":"post-33978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-choose","9":"tag-intentions","10":"tag-leo","11":"tag-monthly","12":"tag-pope","13":"tag-prayer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33981,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33978\/revisions\/33981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}