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Pope Leo XIV speaks to students in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican Oct. 30, 2025, as part of the Jubilee of the World of Education. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

Vatican announces theme for World Mission Sunday 2026


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Catholic News Service Filed Under: Missions, News, World News

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When the Catholic Church celebrates World Mission Sunday for the 100th time in 2026, it will focus on theme, “One in Christ, united in mission.”

The theme, chosen by Pope Leo XIV, is a reflection of his episcopal motto, “In Illo uno unum,” or literally “In the One, we are one.”

The Vatican announced Oct. 31 the theme for the 2026 observance, which will be celebrated Oct. 18. A papal message on the theme is expected in early February.

The theme “highlights the unity of believers in the faith, founded on the unity of Christ with the Father, and the consequent shared mission of evangelization,” the Vatican said.

For World Mission Sunday, Catholics around the globe spend time learning about the Catholic missions, pray in support of missionaries and make donations to support the work of the church in mission lands.

Ahead of the 2025 celebration, Pope Leo had issued a video explaining that “when I served as a missionary priest and then bishop in Peru, I saw first-hand how the faith, the prayer and the generosity shown on World Mission Sunday can transform entire communities.”

As an Augustinian priest, Pope Leo had served in the missions in Peru from 1985 to 1999 and then as apostolic administrator and later bishop of Chiclayo from 2014 to 2023.

Pope Pius XI instituted World Mission Sunday in 1926 to ensure that Catholics around the world shared responsibility for the missionary work of the church.

Prayer, social justice are inseparable, pope tells the Society of St. Vincent de Paul

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Pope Leo XIV encouraged members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to follow the example of its namesake by giving witness to their faith through serving the poor.

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Pope prays for dead, missing following catastrophic mudslides, floods in Nepal

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Pope Leo XIV expressed his sadness by the devastation wrought by a glacial collapse in the Nepal-China border, causing a deadly wave of floods and mudslides that killed 168 people with hundreds more feared dead.

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Pope Leo appoints Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly to Vatican dicastery

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Pope Leo XIV on Aug. 25 appointed the Knights of Columbus’ Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly as a member of the Vatican Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life.

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To experience true relationship with God in the liturgy, faithful’s participation cannot be passive, pope says

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“Firmly rooted” in the Church’s living tradition, the liturgical reform put forth by the Second Vatican Council grew from the need for the faithful to celebrate the liturgy more “consciously and actively,” and not “as strangers and silent spectators,” Pope Leo XIV said.

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Vatican’s top diplomat begins visit to Russia as European leaders flock to Kyiv

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Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states and international organizations, arrived in Moscow Aug. 24 for a four-day visit, with meetings scheduled with Russian government, Orthodox and Catholic leaders.

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Pope Leo XIV: See Jesus in the face of every person with disabilities

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Pope Leo XIV said Aug. 24 that recognizing Jesus in the face of each person with disabilities helps to advance society.

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