“The lay ministry of catechist is a vocation; it’s a mission… It’s an entire way of being.” Pope Francis said in the Pope Video. This video is prepared by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network every month that reveals the Holy Fathers special prayer intentions for a particular month. He also said that the Church needs “good catechists who are both companions and teachers.”

Earlier this year, Pope Francis formally restored the lay ministry of catechists with the Apostolic Letter Antiquum ministerium. In this month’s video, the Pope explains that even today, “in many dioceses, on many continents, evangelization is fundamentally in the hands of a catechist.”

He said, the Church needs “creative people who proclaim the Gospel, but who proclaim it neither with a mute nor with a loudspeaker, but rather with their life, with gentleness, with a new language, and opening new ways.”
Pope Francis invited the faithful to “thank catechists for the interior enthusiasm with which they live this mission at the service of the Church.”

Commenting on this month’s intention, Fr Frédéric Fornos, S.J., International Director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network said, “Francis dedicating this last message to catechists in the same year in which he instituted their lay ministry and in which the synodal journey began ‘as the pilgrim and missionary People of God’ is an eloquent gesture.”