While continuing to post monthly videos through the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, Leo XIV has slightly shifted the direction. He’s encouraging prayer even more directly, instead of promoting a message about prayer.
The changes that are taking shape highlight the new pope's unique style, marked by his Augustinian vocation, which encourages the cultivation of one's inner life.
Pope Francis’ monthly prayer intention videos
In the monthly videos launched in 2016 and made very popular during Francis' pontificate, the Argentine pontiff promoted the prayer intentions himself. Filmed in part in his office, he spoke to the camera, delivering a persuasive, motivating message to support the urgency of the intention he was proposing. The images, reminiscent of a non-profit organization’s message, alternated with concrete illustrations of the subject he wanted to highlight.
Since the election of Leo XIV, the faithful have noticed that the monthly video has changed in tone. While the imagery continues, the new pope doesn't deliver a message; he recites a prayer.
Quite simply. "Previously, these videos were more like communication or catechesis on the prayer intention; they were created in the style of Pope Francis and his own charisma. With Pope Leo XIV, the focus has shifted, although the substance has remained the same. He is more reserved, but clear; calmer and without thunderous statements in terms of communication,“ comments the director of the international network, Jesuit Cristóbal Fones.
”Many people don't want to pray"
The person in charge of the pope's monthly video explains how the initiative has evolved.
“When he received me a few months after his election, Leo XIV confirmed that he wanted to continue with the video but in a different tone: what is important to him is to make the network a place where the faithful learn to pray with him. This is the compass he gives us for our mission.”
In his recent message to young people for World Youth Day 2025, the Pontiff warned that “our deepest questions are not heard or answered by endlessly scrolling on our cell phones, which captures our attention but leaves us with tired minds and empty hearts.”
At the Youth Jubilee in Rome in August, he led hundreds of thousands of young people in a long period of adoration on the lawn of Tor Vergata.
With this orientation, the former Prior General of the Augustinians follows in the footsteps of the profound inner search of the Bishop of Hippo. “I sought You outside, and You were within,” St. Augustine wrote to God, urging believers to seek “within themselves.”
Leo XIV also regularly invites us to pause and “welcome the silence,” as he did in his catechesis on September 17.
“It’s difficult to pray,” says Father Fones, arguing that from the Pope's perspective, it’s not a matter of “repeating words.” “Many people don’t want to pray because praying means stopping and facing oneself, thinking, reflecting on who one is and where one is going.”
Recognizing our vulnerability before God
Other changes—yet to be defined—are anticipated for the Pope Video starting in 2026.
Father Fones agrees that the messages may be less popular. “From 2016 to 2025 with Francis, views have increased enormously. Although this is undoubtedly very important for spreading the themes of the challenges that the Pope invites us to address, ultimately, for the Pope's Prayer Network, this is not what is most decisive and important,” he says. “Media success is not what we’re looking for; what matters is to bring people into an atmosphere of prayer."
Those close to the 267th pope describe him as a man of prayer. When he was prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, “he joined our community life here in Rome, at the General Curia. He was the first to arrive at the chapel at 7:30 a.m. for prayer and Mass,” recalls Father Alejandro Moral Antón, an Augustinian confrere of Robert Prevost who succeeded him as head of the order.
“Encouraging the people of God to pray is not simply a matter of giving technical or magisterial teaching,” Father Fones emphasizes. It’s first and foremost a matter of “not pretending to be resolute teachers, but people who are following a path of the heart, who are not afraid to show themselves vulnerable before God.”
Prayer, in fact, “involves a form of vulnerability, that of recognizing oneself as small and loved, a pilgrim in need. And the pope is also a man and is vulnerable like all of us, like Jesus himself.”
