The COVID pandemic lockdowns may have prevented Catholics worldwide from praying together in person, but they did not stop the Church’s prayer, as many faithful gathered online daily or nightly to pray the Rosary and other prayers for the hurting world.  

Five years later, many continue to pray together regularly with online groups that formed during the pandemic and also in groups that continue to form. 

Many groups utilize video-conferencing platforms that became ubiquitous during the pandemic, but some are using other apps, sometimes to improve their online connection, as they pray the Rosary, Divine Mercy Chaplet and other prayers. 

While praying in person is still preferred, group members and leaders cite convenience and stability for online scheduling because prayer is less likely to be canceled because of weather or local circumstances when members are in different locations. Overall, they say a big benefit of praying online is the opportunity to join with like-minded Catholics around the world they might not otherwise meet.  

In 2020, “we were obviously suffering the effects of the pandemic and basically we were all indoors,” said Victor Ramirez, 44, in the Mexico City metropolitan area, who first joined an online Rosary group during the pandemic lockdown.

That particular group was started in 2020 by Nick Koeppel, a Missouri native; Koeppel met Ramirez at World Youth Day in Panama in 2019. About 30 members have joined the group at different times; now, on average, six to eight pray the Rosary at 9 p.m. CT. Many members are from the United States, but others join from Peru, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, Ramirez said, adding that the Rosary is a way to share the faith near and far. The group prays in English and Spanish and sometimes Latin. Members often find out about the group and other groups through word of mouth.

“Praying and saying intentions keeps you connected,” Ramirez said. “I think that is a support, to keep our prayer life in check, or to be regular to the prayers because, yes, even if we don't share a lot every night, we think that it is nice to be there with them, considering [that] we lived through difficult times together. I think that makes a difference.”

Though Koeppel, who is in his early 30s, started the Rosary group while he was living in the U.S. during the pandemic, he now lives and works as an educator in Lviv, Ukraine; and for the past year, he has been praying with another online Rosary group that meets in the evening on European time. 

The group Koeppel prays with while he’s in Europe was launched about two years ago by Chiara Bertoglio, 42, of Turin, Italy. The group, which has about 140 members, began praying a weekly Rosary, but five or six members on average now pray the Rosary together daily, and some members also pray the Liturgy of the Hours. 

Besides Koeppel and Bertoglio, regular group members include a Dutch man living in Spain, a Portuguese man living in Ireland, and participants from Romania, Croatia and Switzerland. 

Members of the European Rosary take turns leading the decades in their own languages, while links to Rosary prayers in various languages are available in the group chat.

“Every night, normally, each participant has a chance to pray aloud at least one decade, since the group is small,” Bertoglio said. 

Though Koeppel mostly prays with the European group while living in Europe, he said he sometimes joins the U.S. group praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet in the morning U.S. time, which for him in Ukraine is 3 p.m. “In this way I can stay connected,” he said. 

Bertoglio also prays with two other online Rosary groups: one consisting of young adults that she started about nine months ago at the request of a young man she has mentored; and the other, started as a way to pray for an Italian toddler who had cancer. More than 100 people gathered to pray nightly for the child. Now that his condition is stable, about 20 people, mostly in their 70s, continue to pray online the Rosary and other devotions nightly, she said. They use a free, fully encrypted open-source platform.

Bertoglio prays when she can with all three of the online groups. “I try to be as faithful as possible particularly with the groups I was most involved in founding,” she said, adding that virtual prayer has its pluses, though in terms of in-person prayer, “physical presence is also important within the framework of faith.”

Overall, the opportunity to pray with Catholics online is “a way to feel ‘connected’ with fellow Christians all over the world, knowing well the bonds of communion created by the presence of Christ in our midst,” Bertoglio said. “Praying together, with people scattered all over Europe and also outside Europe, is a powerful reminder of the universality of the Church.”

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