2025 CHRISTMAS CAMPAIGN
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The Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is hoping one million children will once again join in their annual initiative to pray the Rosary during the first month of October.
This is the 20th year of the "One million children praying the Rosary" campaign, said a release from ACN, and the event has grown rapidly over the last few years. In 2023 and 2024, for the first time, more than one million children officially signed up to pray the Rosary as part of the event.
The timing of the event aligns with the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which is celebrated on October 7.
With a massive number of people praying, there will be “a tidal wave of prayer around the world, sprung from the hearts of children and uttered in childlike trust,” said Fr. Anton Lässer, ecclesiastical assistant to ACN International.
This year's prayer campaign is particularly important, said Cardinal Maura Piacenza, international president of ACN, noting that there is an "ever-pressing yearning for peace and unity in a world wounded by division, conflict, and suffering.”
“In an age when prayerful silence is too often drowned out by the noise of the world, the Rosary offers an oasis of contemplation. It is neither a dry nor repetitive practice, but rather a gentle and strong path that leads us to the heart of the Gospel,” said Cardinal Piacenza.
Families together
While the campaign highlights the importance of children praying, Piancenza hopes entire families pray together, "so that the entire world may be embraced by this crown of light."
"Let us pray together that the bonds of ecclesial communion, both affective and effective, may be strengthened, and that the Holy Spirit may awaken in the hearts of the young a sincere desire for holiness.”
Groups are invited to register on ACN's official website for the event so that an accurate head count can be taken and children can see how many voices are joining their own from around the world.
As an organization, ACN, "provides pastoral and humanitarian assistance to the persecuted Church around the world," says its website.
The idea of a million children praying the Rosary originates from a saying credited to St. Padre Pio, said ACN. The Italian mystic reportedly said “When a million children pray the Rosary, the world will change.”
Children praying, said Lässer, "have a special power before God—a power that can breach walls, heal wounds, and bring light into the darkness.”
“The Holy Rosary is and always will be a tried and trusted way of hope for peace—a path we are currently walking with great faith, above all in the Church’s Jubilee Year of Hope,” he said.
