About the Pontifical Mission Societies

The Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) are an institution of the Catholic Church, directly entrusted to the Pope and dedicated to supporting the Church’s missionary work throughout the world.

Our mission is to awaken and strengthen the missionary spirit among all believers while supporting the Church’s evangelizing mission. The roots of the Pontifical Mission Societies date back to the 19th century, when both laypeople and clergy, inspired by a deep concern for the missions, established organizations to support the proclamation of the Gospel across the globe. Today, we form one institution comprising four Societies:

• The Society for the Propagation of the Faith
• The Society of St. Peter the Apostle
• The Missionary Childhood Association
• The Missionary Union

Our primary goal is to foster a universal missionary awareness and to remind all the baptized that they share responsibility for the Church’s mission. We fulfill this mission through prayer, formation, and missionary animation.

Through the universal solidarity fund, we support missionary communities around the world, expressing the unity and fraternal communion of the entire Church.

The Pontifical Mission Societies are part of the structures of the Holy See and are currently entrusted to the Dicastery for Evangelization, established under the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium. This Dicastery continues the mission of the former Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, whose origins date back to 1622, when Pope Gregory XV established the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) to coordinate the Church’s missionary activity throughout the world.

In the spirit of the Church’s renewal emphasized by Pope Francis, the Pontifical Mission Societies embody the vision of a missionary and synodal Church, in which every baptized person is a missionary disciple, called to share responsibility for proclaiming the Gospel.