(ZENIT News / Rome, 12.13.2024).- From 1 January 2025, Father Cristóbal Fones, SJ, will take up the role of International Director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network. This Pontifical work, established by Pope Francis in 2018, promotes prayer at the heart of Church’s mission as well as the spirituality of the Heart of Jesus.
The appointment was made by Pope Francis, following a recommendation from Father General Arturo Sosa. Fr Fones succeeds Fr Frédéric Fornos, SJ, in this role for a five-year term. He will lead a new organizational structure for the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network in line with the new Statutes approved by the Holy Father in July 2024, alongside two new deputy directors: Mrs Bettina Raed and Fr Miguel Pedro Melo SJ.
The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network’s mission centers around mobilizing Catholics through prayer and action to respond to the challenges facing humanity and the mission of the Church. It was founded in 1844 as the Apostleship of Prayer in a house of formation for young Jesuits. Today, it has evolved into a spiritual movement that connects millions of Catholics worldwide, fostering a sense of unity and shared purpose in addressing the challenges of our times.
An important part of the work of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network is the Pope’s Video, an innovative communication project launched in 2016. These videos, which feature the Holy Father himself, highlight a prayer intention every month. It is officially translated into 23 languages and adapted into at least 20 more, with a reach of over 22 million people globally.
Another key initiative of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network is the Click To Pray platform, available as a mobile application and in web version in seven languages. It aims to be a simple, yet concrete tool, to aid people to pray three times daily, inspired by the Gospel. The official prayer profile of the Pope is also hosted on this platform.
This year marks a decade since the refoundation of the Apostleship of Prayer as the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network. In 2014, the Apostleship of Prayer underwent a significant transformation, initiated in 2010 by the then Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Fr Adolfo Nicolás, who encouraged reflection and deepening of this spiritual tradition. Fr Nicolás invited Fr Fornos to Rome to lead this process of revitalization. At the time, Fr Fornos was serving as European Coordinator and had previously been the national director of the Apostleship of Prayer in France, where it was founded 180 years earlier.
Pope Francis supported this revitalization, approving the process in 2014 to emphasize that prayer is at the heart of the Church’s mission. He appointed Fr Fornos as the international director in 2016, and in 2018, he approved the Statutes that established thePope’s Worldwide Prayer Network as a Pontifical Work, emphasizing the universal character of its mission. In 2020, he erected the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network to a canonical and Vatican legal entity with its headquarters in Vatican City State, for a three-year ad experimentum period. Finally, on July 1, 2024, Pope Francis approved the final Statutes of this Pontifical Work, marking a new phase in its history. The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network also includes a youth branch – the Eucharistic Youth Movement (EYM).
At a media reception organized on 5 December at the General Curia of the Society of Jesus in Rome, Father Fones underlined that the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network is an ecclesial and universal mission. Referring to Pope Francis’ latest Encyclical Dilexit Nos, he stressed that the spirituality of the heart of Jesus is important in a world that has lost its heart, in order to transform us to build a more just and fraternal world in the face of contemporary challenges such as wars and socioeconomic inequalities. It is in line with this that thePope’s Worldwide Prayer Network proposes a spiritual itinerary called The Way of the Heart – a path of inner transformation to live out the mission of compassion the world so badly needs. It is structured in nine stages and inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius.
The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network is active in more than 90 countries in the world, with national and diocesan teams who disseminate and promote the prayer intentions in the local contexts using different means including magazines, booklets, drawings, songs, educational materials, activities in schools, parishes, and more. Numerous religious congregations actively support the Eucharistic Youth Movement (EYM) or have integrated the Apostleship of Prayer into their own charism.
Thank you for reading our content. If you would like to receive ZENIT’s daily e-mail news, you can subscribe for free through this link.
