Pope Leo XIV again called on the faithful to pray the Rosary, “so dear to the tradition of the Church,” at the end of the general audience on Wednesday, October 7, 2026. Greeting Italian pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, he made this appeal on the very day the Church celebrates the liturgical memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary. His appeal concerns invoking Mary in life’s difficulties, as well as praying for peace and an end to wars.
In the tradition of the Church, Mary is invoked as a “sure refuge amid life’s difficulties,” the Mother in heaven and a source of comfort for a world wounded by the scourge of war. The appeal at the audience followed the Pope’s earlier calls: on Sunday, October 4, he spoke about praying the Rosary in his midday address after the Angelus, and a week earlier, on September 27, he made the same appeal during his apostolic journey to France, which included a visit to Lourdes.
Mary’s intercession was also present in the greetings to other groups of pilgrims at the audience. Addressing the Portuguese faithful, the Pope mentioned the feast of Our Lady of Aparecida, patroness of Brazil, celebrated on October 12. “I entrust you and your families to her maternal intercession. May Our Lady always protect you,” he said. He then presented Mary, the Mother of Jesus, to pilgrims from Chinese-speaking communities as a “refuge and strength in moments of difficulty and suffering.”
In his appeal from France, Leo XIV encouraged all the faithful to pray the Rosary during October with the special intention of ending wars and establishing peace among nations in conflict. He stressed that prayer should be accompanied by concrete action: acts of penance and charity, and a commitment that supports dialogue and reconciliation. Alongside the intention of praying for an end to conflict, the Pope thus explicitly called for these actions and a commitment to reconciliation.
On the first day of October, more than seven hundred children prayed the Rosary for peace in the Vatican Gardens. Gathered around the Lourdes grotto, they expressed their intention in a plea: “Grant us peace!” In recent days, many other voices around the world have joined their prayer, sharing the same desire for weapons to fall silent and conflicts to end. This call to prayer is linked to the “A Million Children Pray the Rosary” initiative.
The initiative has been promoted for more than twenty years by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need. According to a report by the Catholic News Agency, it was inspired by words attributed to St. Pio of Pietrelcina: “If a million children pray the Rosary together, the world will change.” At its heart is the children’s prayer together, joined by others in different parts of the world in the intention of bringing conflicts to an end.
On Sunday, October 4, Pope Leo XIV thanked children from around the world who had joined their Hail Marys with the prayers of their peers. He held up their prayer together as an example for other faithful to follow. “Let us all follow their example,” he urged, so that nations may be freed from the scourge of war. In this appeal, he directed special thoughts to the Holy Land and to the innocent victims of violence.
