Good evening, everyone! Good evening and welcome!

I would like to thank His Eminence Cardinal Koch for his greeting, and the “Aid to the Church in Need” Foundation for organizing this initiative and for the great work it carries out. I thank everyone present for being here, especially you, children, together with your parents and other family members, the priests and all those accompanying you.

I am truly happy to be with you! And you, children, tell me: are you happy? Are you happy to be here? [Yes!].

I am glad to hear that. Especially because this evening we have gathered to be together with the two people who love us more than anyone else. Do you know who they are? [they reply: Jesus] Jesus and who else? [Mary] And Mary. The Lord Jesus and his mother Mary, who never leave us alone and who are always close to us.

We love them too, don’t we? [Yes!] Shall we say it? Let’s try. Let’s repeat together: I LOVE YOU, JESUS [they repeat]. I LOVE YOU, MARY [they repeat].

Yes, we love them, Jesus and Mary, and this evening we will ask them for a special gift: peace for all the children in the world, especially for those who are living war-torn areas in so many countries across the globe.

We will do so with the prayer of the Holy Rosary, which is a simple prayer that everyone can recite. We have already made the gesture of offering flowers as a sign of love. We will soon light the candles, and we will think of Jesus in some of the important moments of His life, in which He brought light and peace to so many people: when He was baptized in the River Jordan, when He turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana, when He proclaimed His Kingdom, when He showed His glory on Mount Tabor, and when, in the Upper Room, He left us the Eucharist. They are moments in which He bestowed marvellous gifts upon us, gifts we must never forget, and for this we wish to thank Him. Let us do this together, once again. Let us all say: THANK YOU, JESUS! [they repeat]. And let us ask him with confidence, all united: GIVE US PEACE! [they repeat].

And I would like to say one last thing to you: this evening, and in these days, we are not alone in our prayers. All over the world, a million children are praying with us. A million! Just think: fifty million “Hail Marys” rising to Heaven from every corner of the earth and in every language, asking for peace, and coming together as if in a single, vast Rosary, to embrace and bind together all the continents, races and nations of the planet.

So, dear children, today we are praying with all these friends. And in doing so, we also commit ourselves to being good and behaving well – at home, at school, at catechism, with our parents, with everyone, even when we are playing and doing sport, because prayers must always be accompanied by good deeds and acts of love. And that is how peace grows!

Thank you all once again for being here. And now let us pray.

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Holy See Press Office Bulletin, 1st October 2026