‘For the proper use of wealth’ is Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention for November
Pope Leo XIV’s November prayer intention asks Catholics to pray for the proper use of wealth. In a video released by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, he says wealth should be shared and used in service rather than hoarded or treated as power. The pope prays that people use money, time, talents, and opportunities to foster fraternity, justice, and mercy. The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, founded in 1844, serves a spiritual community in more than 92 countries.
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Pope Leo XIV’s November prayer intention calls on Catholics to use wealth—whether money, time, skills or opportunities—as a means of service and sharing, rather than accumulation or power. He presented the intention in a video released Nov. 3, emphasizing that possessions are gifts meant to benefit others, especially people in need.
Leo’s prayer describes the earth, people’s talents and the work of previous generations as gifts from God, adding that “nothing is ours alone.” He asks forgiveness for hoarding instead of sharing and for using material goods as power rather than service.
The pope says true wealth is found not in what people keep but in what they give with love. He prays that detachment from possessions will encourage justice, reduce indifference and bring hope to the poor.
The prayer asks Catholics to let the Holy Spirit guide their use of money, time, talents and opportunities as “instruments of fraternity.” It also calls for economic, family and community decisions to recognize that goods are meant for all, and concludes with a plea that wealth be transformed into service and mercy.
The “Pray with the Pope” video was prepared by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network. The network, founded in 1844 as the Apostleship of Prayer, is a pontifical work entrusted to the Society of Jesus and has operated as a Vatican foundation since Pope Francis established it in 2020.
The network is active in more than 92 countries and has a spiritual community of over 22 million people. Its monthly papal prayer intentions invite members to focus on challenges facing humanity and the Church’s mission.
The moral purpose of wealth in Catholic social thought
In Catholic social thought, wealth is neither evil in itself nor an absolute private possession. It can support human dignity, family life, productive work, and the common good—but its moral purpose is fulfilled when it is responsibly managed and its benefits reach beyond the owner. The central balance is between a real right to own property and the universal destination of goods: the conviction that the goods of creation are meant to serve everyone.
Catholic teaching recognizes private ownership as lawful and important. It protects personal freedom and gives people responsibility for providing for themselves and their households. But ownership does not mean that a person may use wealth however they please without regard to others. Leo XIII expresses the distinction this way:
“It is one thing to have a right to the possession of money and another to have a right to use money as one wills.”
This distinction is fundamental. The right to own property is real, but the use of property carries moral obligations. Catholic social teaching describes creation’s goods as having a “universal destination”: they are entrusted to humanity as a whole, not intended solely for the advantage of those who happen to possess them. Even legitimately owned goods therefore retain a social purpose. The modern business reflection calls this a “social mortgage” on property and capital: ownership remains, but it is subject to the claim that goods serve the common good.
That does not mean that everyone must receive identical shares of wealth. The business reflection explicitly calls for a just rather than equal distribution—one that responds to people’s needs, recognizes contributions and risks, and preserves an organization’s financial health. Catholic teaching therefore resists both extremes: treating wealth as entirely private and morally unaccountable, and assuming that justice always requires equal outcomes.
Wealth is morally significant not just because of what it can buy, but because of what people can do with it. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church presents economic activity as part of humanity’s vocation to cultivate and care for creation. It says that material goods are to be properly used, preserved, and increased, and that economic activity and progress should serve human beings and society.
This is why the Catholic idea of stewardship is more than occasional generosity. People who hold wealth are responsible for how they use it, preserve it, and put it to work. Wealth may support the owner and family, but it should also enable productive activity and contribute to society. The Catechism, for example, says that productive goods—including land, factories, and people’s skills—oblige their possessors to employ them in ways that benefit the greatest number.
Business decisions are consequently moral decisions as well as financial ones. How a business sets prices, pays wages, shares ownership, distributes dividends, or handles its obligations can affect who has access to the fruits of work and creation. The Church’s reflection on business asks leaders to consider those distributive effects, while still attending to the organization’s financial health.
The obligation to share is especially clear when another person lacks what is necessary. Leo XIII teaches that people may provide for their own needs and maintain their household appropriately; but after those needs and a reasonable standard of life have been provided for, they have a duty to give from what remains to people in need. He distinguishes that ordinary duty of Christian charity from extreme cases, in which the duty can become one of justice.
That distinction matters. Charity is not a substitute for justice, and a need cannot always be answered merely by describing aid as voluntary generosity. Benedict XVI states that helping the poor can be “a duty of justice even prior to being an act of charity.” Catholic social thought therefore considers both personal decisions about giving and the wider arrangements that shape whether people can obtain the means needed for life.
The Compendium summarizes the moral direction of wealth plainly: riches serve humanity when they produce benefits for others and society. It warns against immoderate attachment and hoarding, and presents those who possess goods as administrators of what God has entrusted to them. The point is not that every possession must immediately be given away, but that wealth cannot be treated as morally neutral when it is accumulated or used without regard to the needs of others.
The Church’s teaching is not that being wealthy, owning property, or engaging in economic activity is intrinsically sinful. Leo XIII explicitly defends private property, while also insisting that the wealthy will answer for how they use what they possess. The moral danger lies in making wealth an end in itself: hoarding it, placing comfort above human need, or refusing to see how one’s choices affect others. The Compendium links improper accumulation to a denial of goods’ universal destination and warns that the craving for money can draw a person away from faith.
So the Catholic question is not simply, “How much does someone own?” It is also, “How was it acquired, how is it being used, what does it enable, and are the needs of others being ignored?” Wealth fulfills its purpose when it supports human flourishing, contributes to society, and is shared—especially where people lack what they need. Ownership gives responsibility as well as rights; prosperity is most defensible when it becomes a means of serving others and the common good.