At 13.00 today, at the Holy See Press Office, Via della Conciliazione 54, a press conference was held to present the “Pray with the Pope” campaign, an initiative of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.

The speakers were: Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, and Father Cristóbal Fones, S.J., international director fo the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.

The following are their interventions.

Intervention of Paolo Ruffini

Good morning.

I will not take up much of your time.

However, I would like to emphasize the importance of this project for the Dicastery for Communication, which involves our technology department, Vatican Media, the editorial department, the theological-pastoral department and, of course, the Press Office, which has brought us together here today.

Praying with the Pope represents a different way of understanding the network, of weaving the network, of rooting it in the territory, of making connection a tool of communion, and communion a tool of communication.

It also means escaping the frenzy of speed that forces us to limit our attention to just a few seconds; to find ourselves with the Successor of Peter online and with our own community offline in a protected space, in a slow time of prayer.

Thinking about what I could say today, I was reminded – with regard to the different types of networks – of the dialogue between the spider and the bee in a famous fable by Jonathan Swift.

The former remains still. Its network is a spider's web. It produces a poison for flies. The bee, on the other hand, builds a network of meaning and, through universal exploration, long research, true judgement and distinction of things, brings home honey and wax. Thus providing humanity with two of the most noble things, which are sweetness and light.

“Around us”, Pope Leo said yesterday, “a distorted economy tries to profit from everything. We see how the marketplace can turn human yearnings of seeking, travelling and beginning again into a mere business”.

And we are so used to other networks, constructed according to this paradigm, where everything is monetized, that the idea of working on a prayer network without any other purpose may seem strange to us. Yet praying together is building a network.

And even in our secularized age, as Pope Leo said yesterday in his homily, we are challenged by the spiritual quest of our contemporaries, which is much richer than we can perhaps understand.

The Church was a network before the World Wide Web. But what united it and unites it deeply does not come from us but from God. Connection alone is not enough.

Pope Francis wrote, in Evangelii gaudium:

“Today, when the networks and means of human communication have made unprecedented advances, we sense the challenge of finding and sharing a ‘mystique’ of living together… To go out of ourselves and to join others is healthy for us” (EG 87).

And Pope Leo XIV has invited us all, missionary disciples in our digital time, to go and repair the networks, which also means rediscovering the beauty of praying together for the common good, of not cultivating delusions of grandeur or conquest, but of relearning to turn to God together, calling him “Abba”, “Father”, like children; thus revealing the mystery of the communion that unites us among ourselves and with Him.

“Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Mt 18:20)”.

The Pope’s worldwide prayer network responds to a widespread desire, much more widespread than we think: to rediscover this different beauty in the network; finding in prayer the strength to nurture a different way of acting in the world. A different path, as the Pope told us again yesterday when he recalled the Magi.

Repairing the nets, building a different network, is missionary work.

And the close collaboration of the Dicastery with the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network is a concrete way for us to combine the communication of the Holy See with the communion of the whole Church around the successor of Peter, which is precisely the mission entrusted to the Dicastery: the construction, through communication, of that network of communion that makes us truly members of each other.

This network, which is not virtual but real, shows that it is still possible – it is always possible – to encounter each other, even in a time of divisions, bombs and wars. We just need to create opportunities to do so. And meeting to pray helps us to bring back unity to what is divided.

The Pope's personal and universal prayer is thus offered in a new, sober and powerful way, as a visible instrument of union and sharing in the Lord, a meeting point for millions of people, members of one another, fully present in the digital and physical spaces of their lives, starting from the inner spaces of each person's heart.

It is a simple and powerful way to reconnect with the right words, true words, words that heal amid the din of too many misguided words. I believe we can all be grateful to the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, to Father Cristóbal Fones and to all those who, through their service, bring these words to life in the world by weaving them into a network.

Intervention of Father Cristóbal Fones, S.J.

Good afternoon, everyone, and a very happy 2026.

We are delighted to gather here today to share with you the “Pray with the Pope” campaign, a global initiative that the Holy Father Leo XIV has entrusted to his Worldwide Prayer Network, in collaboration with the Dicastery for Communication, to build even deeper authentic networks of solidarity and apostolic availability. Through this campaign, the Pope wishes to share his monthly prayer intention as a genuine invitation to “pray with him” for the great challenges we face in the world.

This campaign builds on a fruitful initiative launched by Pope Francis ten years ago, known as “The Pope Video”. In it, the Pontiff has invited us each month to open our hearts to the difficult realities of humanity, in the manner of Jesus. Under the direction of my predecessor, Fr. Frederic Fornos, and in close collaboration with the production company La Machi, professionally guided by journalist Andrea Sarubbi, “The Pope Video” has reached millions of people around the world, conveying a clear and challenging message that has left no one indifferent.

In keeping with this mission of compassion for the world, and adding a new perspective, the campaign we are presenting today moves us more decisively towards silence, towards an intimate, serene experience; a shared inner experience that truly transforms life from within.

The focus of this new stage will be more centred on supporting a spiritual experience, which often becomes difficult in the midst of our daily lives, so hectic and full of noise. The Pope is very aware of this and wants to help us, inviting us to pray together for others. He knows how deeply we need to slow down in order to achieve greater depth in our decisions and relationships.

With a simple and accessible format, “Pray with the Pope” aims to be an open door so that anyone, wherever they are, can join in the prayer intention proposed by the Holy Father each month, praying with him in a synodal way, sustained by the same mission. It is a simple and universal invitation to which each of us can respond.

Pope Leo XIV, as we know, has invited us numerous times this year to pray for an “unarmed and disarming peace”. And that peace is a grace to be received, as well as a task to be built; it comes from a true disposition of the heart that we must learn to ask for in a deeper way. Is there a place where we can become more vulnerable, exposed, without masks, than in the presence of the One who loves us? Prayer is that space where what is authentic, simple, fundamental, what makes us who we are, can emerge. And we want to live it together in service to the needs of the world.

The Pope's prayer intentions for the year 2026 address some of the challenges of our time, the wounds of the world, the search for the human being, and the hope that the Church is called to safeguard. We want each video and each audio to help us unite in the same prayer, addressing issues that affect each of us directly or indirectly.

We will begin this year by asking to learn to pray with the most definitive Word, which is not our own, so full of empty promises, but Jesus Christ. This is the basis for a year in which we will also be invited to pray for children with incurable diseases, for effective disarmament—particularly nuclear disarmament— for priests in crisis, for universal access to quality food, the promotion of the values of sport, respect for human life, accompaniment for those who feel alone in big cities, care for water, the good use of wealth, and families experiencing the absence of a mother or father.

This campaign can be followed on our landing page popesprayer.va in several languages, and can also be heard in audio format on Vatican Radio and on platforms associated with Pray with the Pope: Pray as You Go, RezandoVoy and Hallow.

We invite you to share this good news and to participate in this prayer network, which supports Pope Leo's ministry from a perspective that is often silenced by a mercantile and noisy society, governed by algorithms and stimuli that distance us from what is most true in our hearts. Praying—and doing so together—awakens our capacity to be brothers and sisters, to care for the lives of others, to build solidarity and concrete love.

The Worldwide Prayer Network seeks precisely to help in this direction. It is present in more than 90 countries and some 22 million people actively participate in it. You can imagine the variety of stories, faces, cultures, languages and perspectives on life. By uniting in this common mission, we truly seek to highlight issues that are important and decisive for everyone, opening our hearts to urgent realities and transforming our environment to counteract the “globalization of indifference”.

We would now like to present two video messages from people who are part of communities of the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network in different parts of the world and who pray together for the challenges facing humanity and the mission of the Church. On the one hand, the testimony of Kédi Ogou Marianne Inès from Cote d’Ivoire reflects how intercessory prayer connects her deeply with the Lord and with others. On the other hand, Stella Vania from Indonesia tells us how prayer and attitudes for daily life help her to transform herself and have a more open view of others.