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Fr. Joseph Laramie, SJ

May 28, 2020 – Jesuit Fr. Frederic Fornos, the international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, yesterday announced from Vatican City that he has named Fr. Joseph Laramie, SJ, the new national director for the Prayer Network in the United States.

Archbishop José Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, approved the appointment.

Father Laramie is a member of the Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province. He served most recently as a campus minister at Saint Louis University and has been a spiritual director at White House Retreat, as well as a teacher and director of pastoral ministry at Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the author of Abide in the Heart of Christ: a 10-Day Personal Retreat with St Ignatius Loyola.

The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network in North America (formerly known as the Apostleship of Prayer) provides all English-language content for the Holy Father’s Click to Pray App. Through the app, the PWPN reaches hundreds of thousands of English speakers monthly. Click to Pray is available through Google Play or the App Store.

The PWPN’s U.S. website welcomes tens of thousands of visitors monthly, sharing “The Way of the Heart” and the “Pope Video.” The Pope Video is the Vatican platform Pope Francis entrusts to share his monthly prayer intentions, in which he draws the world’s attention to “the challenges facing humanity.” This ecclesial service, now a Pontifical Work, celebrated its 175th anniversary with a papal audience in Rome last June. In the US, it has remained deeply committed to a direct postal mail-ministry to the incarcerated, the homebound and those without internet access.

Father Laramie replaces Fr. William Blazek, SJ, who has been director since 2017. The principal accomplishment during Fr. Blazek’s term was pivoting from a highly print-based ministry to a more fully digital ministry.