Spring 2025, a New Magazine for ACN Canada Press Release – For Immediate Release Montreal, April 2, 2025 – Hope, the theme of Jubilee 2025, is at the heart of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) Canada’s new Spring 2025 Magazine, available on the national branch’s website at: https://acn-canada.org/magazine/. (Cover photo: a young seminarian from …
Category archives: Nigeria
Nigeria: “Let our children go back to school”
A plea for government in northern Nigeria to rethink the sudden and unprecedented closure of schools during Ramadan has come from a bishop concerned for the hundreds of thousands of children affected. Bishop Gerald Mamman Musa of Katsina (photo) said it came as “a complete surprise” when governors in his state as well as Kano, …
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Nigerian Church in pain as 21-year-old seminarian murder
The murder of seminarian Andrew Peter follows the recent killing of Fr Sylvester Okechukwu. Nigeria has had three times more kidnappings of clergy and religious in the first three months of 2025 than in the same period of 2024. (Cover photo: Pray to Christ on the cross for the suffering Church in Nigeria. Add your …
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Sorrow and indignation over murder of Nigerian priest
Since 2021, at least one pastoral agent has been murdered every year in the Diocese of Kafanchan. The bishop of the Diocese of Kafanchan in Kaduna State, Nigeria, has expressed his “deep sorrow and righteous indignation” over the abduction and subsequent murder of one of his priests. Fr. Sylvester Okechukwu was abducted from his residence …
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Priest kidnapped and murdered in Nigeria
A total of five priests and two religious sisters have been kidnapped in Nigeria this year alone. Besides Fr. Sylvester Okechukwu, who was murdered, two remain missing, while the other four were released. (Cover photo: A destroyed crucifix in Burkina Faso, a country where the security situation for Christians is challenging too.) A Catholic priest …
Massacres spoil Christmas celebrations in Nigeria
In December—including on Christmas Day—a series of attacks on Christian communities left dozens dead, according to recent reports from local Church sources shared with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). Dozens of Christians were killed in attacks at and around Christmas time in Nigeria, especially in Benue State. News of these attacks only recently …
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Being a priest today: One of the most dangerous missions in the world
The number of priests and religious kidnapped in 2024 increased, while the number arrested for reasons of persecution decreased. In total, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) registered 122 cases impacting priests and religious, including 13 murders, 38 kidnappings, and 71 held under arrest. Ten of these incidents involved women, eight of whom were …
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Nigeria: Memorial Mass for massacred Christians
Just over a year after extremists murdered more than 300 people in coordinated attacks targeting Christian villages in Plateau State, Nigeria, the faithful gathered for a special Mass to remember the victims last Sunday (January 5). Cover photo: December 2023, one of the many funerals service for the victims of the massacre. Bishop Michael Gobal …
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Nigeria: prayers requests for two abducted sisters in Anambra
ATTENTION, update: the two religious sisters were released on January 13. Thank you for your prayers, and please continue to pray for those oppressed by kidnapping. Two religious sisters, Vincentia Nwankwo and Grace Okoli, were abducted this past Tuesday, January 7 in Anambra State in southeastern Nigeria. They belong to the congregation of the Sisters …
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Nigeria – Priest trades places with two seminarians about to be kidnapped
Kidnapping for ransom has become an industry in Nigeria, and priests are often targeted. A priest was kidnapped from the minor seminary where he worked, last Sunday, and taken by armed bandits into the bush. Armed gunmen broke into the Immaculate Conception Minor Seminary, in the Diocese of Auchi, Edo State, Nigeria, at around 7 …
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