On October 18, 2026, the Church celebrates World Mission Sunday for the hundredth time. Known in Rome as World Mission Day, it began with a request to Pope Pius XI in 1926, and it grew out of the work of a young woman in Lyon a century before that.
Here is how the day came to be, who made it possible, and why, one hundred years later, it still belongs to every parish.
Pope Pius XI established World Mission Day, approving it on April 14, 1926. He set it on the second-to-last Sunday of October, where it remains today.
He did not act alone. As Pope Leo XIV recalled in his address to the Pontifical Mission Societies on June 1, 2026, the day was established “at the request of the Pontifical Society of the Propagation of the Faith.” Since then, in his words, “this day has been set apart for prayer, reflection and contributing to the Church’s mission of evangelization, especially in areas where the proclamation of the Gospel is only just beginning and where the Church is still young.”
The request came from the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, which Pius XI had made a pontifical society four years earlier, on May 3, 1922.
The Society asked the Pope for “a day of prayer and propaganda for the missions,” to be held on the same day throughout the Catholic world. In the language of the time, propaganda simply meant spreading the faith. The goal was to foster “understanding of the greatness of the missionary task” and to “encourage offerings for the missions” (Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales).
Prayer first, then giving. One hundred years later, the day keeps the same order.
The Society for the Propagation of the Faith did more than ask for World Mission Day. It still carries it. Pope Leo XIV put it simply: “Thanks to the funds raised on World Mission Sunday, the Pontifical Society of the Propagation of the Faith is able to provide necessary help.”
The offerings collected that day form the Universal Solidarity Fund, which supports the formation of priests and religious, catechesis, and the building of churches in mission territories. In the United States, the Society is one of the four Pontifical Mission Societies that make up TPMS.
The Society’s story begins in Lyon, France, with a young laywoman named Pauline Jaricot. Her idea was simple: a group of ten people would each find ten others willing to pray and to give one penny a week for the missions. On May 3, 1822, when she was 23, that network was formally established as the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (TPMS).
Exactly one hundred years later, Pius XI made it a pontifical society. Four years after that, he gave it World Mission Day. Pauline Jaricot was beatified in Lyon on May 22, 2022, in a Mass presided over by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle.
Her method, many small gifts joined by prayer, is still the method of every World Mission Sunday collection.
In the United States, World Mission Sunday found its greatest voice in Blessed Fulton J. Sheen, National Director of TPMS from 1950 to 1966. Pope Leo XIV described him as “a light of faith, hope, and love that shone through the radio and television media for decades,” and added a personal memory: “I myself am a witness of his evangelization when I was growing up.”
Sheen used that reach to make the missions part of ordinary American Catholic life. His broadcasts, the Pope said, “touched millions with the hope of the Gospel and his initiatives and efforts resulted in enormous spiritual and material aid to the Churches in areas of first evangelization.” Among those initiatives was the World Mission Rosary, which he introduced in 1951. During his tenure, annual US support for the Society grew from about $3.5 million to about $16 million, according to TPMS’s profile of Sheen as National Director.
He was beatified on September 24, 2026, in St. Louis, during the centenary year itself. Pope Leo XIV called the timing “providential.”
A century ago, the Church in the United States still received missionary aid from abroad. Today it is one of the great supporters of the young Churches in Africa, Asia, Oceania and parts of Latin America. Pope Leo XIV sees that as the particular gift of this day: “one of the particular services of World Mission Sunday is to remind people in the older churches, if you will in the established churches, how important it is that they too join in the missionary spirit of the whole Church.”
He also says what the day asks: “every Catholic community is invited to pray and offer spiritual and material sacrifices for the missionary efforts in areas of first evangelization and for the support of young churches.” This October 18, that can look like this:
Pray the World Mission Rosary, live every day in October at 3 p.m. ET.
Give at your parish collection, or online.
Learn about the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the society that asked for this day.
Share the resources on the World Mission Sunday 2026 page with your parish.
Two centuries ago, Pauline Jaricot started with ten people and a penny a week. One hundred World Mission Sundays later, the invitation is just as simple.
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