19/07/2024, Author: ACN Press team

The Catholic Church in Belarus is highly involved in pastoral work with children and young people. Every week, hundreds of children attend catechesis, and every year numerous children receive their first Holy Communion. During the Soviet period, the practice of religion was severely restricted, but thanks to the deep faith passed on by grandparents, the Faith still has deep roots.

15/07/2024, Author: Sylvain Dorient

His Beatitude Ibrahim Sidrak, the Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria, heads the small Coptic Catholic Church, which has around 300,000 faithful. In an interview with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), he shared his concerns and joys over his country, which has become a refuge for many Christians from other countries.

A bill approved by the US Congress will go a long way to helping fund efforts to promote religious freedom in countries where it is lacking.

Thirty years after returning to Bangladesh, the Jesuits are opening a new novitiate on 16 July in the South Asian country, where Christians are a small minority. By allowing the novices to have their initial formation in the local culture and languages, the Jesuits hope to promote vocations.

When he converted to Christianity at age 12, Gerald Musa’s father could scarcely have imagined that his son would become the first bishop of his influential Hausa ethnic group.

09/07/2024, Author: Filipe d’Avillez

Many feared that the invasion of their homelands would drive Christians from Iraq for good, but ten years after being driven from their homelands by militants of the Islamic State (ISIS), thousands of Christians have returned to houses in the Nineveh Plains rebuilt with the help of ACN, taking with them their love for the Church and the hope of the Gospel.

09/07/2024, Author: John Pontifex

The chair of the Catholic Church’s National (Catholic) Commission for Justice and Peace in Pakistan has lambasted a court for passing the death sentence on a Christian man found guilty of blasphemy in connection with one of the worst atrocities against minorities in the country’s history.

09/07/2024, Author: Sina Hartert

During his visit to the international headquarters of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia spoke with the charity about the situation on the ground.

08/07/2024, Author: Paulo Aido & Filipe dAvillez

Devotion to the Catholic Church is one of the distinguishing aspects of East Timorese culture. Francis will be the second Pope to visit the territory, but the first since independence.

01/07/2024, Author: Maria Lozano

It is with immense gratitude that Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) informs about the release from Russian captivity of Fathers Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta, on June 28, 2024, as has been confirmed by the Information Department of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), to which they belong.

When Pope St John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979, one of the places he wanted to go to was the ancient monastic site of Clonmacnoise. The Pope knew, that while the Faith in Ireland seemed robust at the time, great challenges would come – and he wanted to remind us of the deep roots of the faith on this island.

28/06/2024, Author: Paulo Aido

When terrorists overran the town of Mocímboa da Praia, most of the population, including Christians, fled. Now, the Christians who returned have no access to the sacraments and no clergy or religious to assist them, but they continue to gather close to the ruins of the local church to pray together every Sunday.

28/06/2024, Author: Lucía Ballester

In Batey 5, a peripheral area of the Diocese of Barahona on the border with Haiti, three missionaries, with the support of Aid to the Church in Need, help fight poverty and social exclusion in the neediest parish in one of the poorest dioceses in the Dominican Republic.

25/06/2024, Author: Sina Hartert.

After new massacres in North-Kivu, Mgr Sikuli Paluku, Bishop of Butembo-Beni, in a message sent to ACN, denounces the atrocities committed by the ADF since the beginning of June 2024. The bishop insists that there cannot be a separation between faith and the defence of human dignity.

25/06/2024, Author: Maria Lozano.

ACN’s accounts for 2023 once again reflect the generosity of the foundation’s benefactors from all over the world to help suffering Christians and the Church in Need. Ukraine, Syria and Lebanon were the countries that received the most aid in 2023, while Africa was the continent which received the most support.

ACN and the local Church are calling for prayer so that peace may be restored to the region. Daily rocket fire in southern Lebanon is plunging the inhabitants into deeper poverty than they were already suffering as a result of the terrible financial crisis in 2019. The Church is standing with the people, providing practical help for their needs and providing a moving witness of courage.

Christians in Pakistan have demanded Punjab officials bring to justice the perpetrators of the brutal attack on Nazir Gill Masih in Sargodha, which resulted in his death.

The Rwandan genocide of 1994 is known worldwide, but what is less well known is that it resulted in the neighbouring eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo being shaken by successive wars and crises. Over the course of these three decades, the Congolese church, with the help of ACN, has brought hope to a sorely tried population.

The Archbishop of Panama spoke to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) about his experience in the region of the Darién Gap, one of the most inhospitable migratory routes in Latin America. Archbishop José Domingo Ulloa highlighted the urgent need for attention and action in the face of the terrible conditions that thousands of migrants face while attempting this perilous crossing.