Background: World Mission Sunday
October 17, 2025
On October 19, the Church around the world commemorates World Mission Sunday. The theme of the Pope’s message for the day—written by Pope Francis and published in January, three months before his passing—is “Missionaries of Hope Among all Peoples.”
World Mission Sunday was instituted by Pope Pius XI in 1926 and first commemorated in 1927. As St. John Paul II explained in 2001, Pope Pius “accepted a request by the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith to ‘establish a day of prayer and propaganda for the missions’ to be celebrated on the same day in every diocese, parish and institute of the Catholic world . . . and to encourage offerings for the missions.”
The Vatican website has compiled English translations of the messages for the day by Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis.
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