“We are grateful to Pope Leo,” says executive president Regina Lynch Cardinal Koch has been a friend of ACN for many years and brings with him a wealth of experience in the field of ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. The pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has expressed its gratitude to Pope Leo XIV …
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Catholic Bishops of Nigeria warn of escalating violence and call for urgent action to protect life and religious freedom (Cover Photo, archive: displaced women by the violence in Nigeria, 2023.) Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) echoes the urgent appeal of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), which warns of the deepening security …
Continue reading “Nigerian Bishops: “Lasting peace cannot be achieved through silence or delay””
With unemployment disproportionately affecting the Christian community, and as a gesture during the Jubilee of Hope, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem (LPJ) made the decision to cancel student debt in all its schools. Even though Christians are the smallest of the three major faith groups present in the Holy Land, after Jews and Muslims, the …
The Catholic Diocese of Kontagora has reported a violent overnight attack on St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools in Papiri, Niger State, Nigeria, resulting in “the kidnapping of pupils, students, teachers, and school personnel, as well as a security guard who was badly shot.” According to the statement sent to Aid to the Church …
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An estimated 128,000 people have had to flee the affected region, according to UN estimates. Photo: Displaced women (2024). At least four Christians were murdered by jihadists in northern Mozambique over the past days, in the latest wave of attacks of an insurgency which began in 2017. Although the insurgency began in Cabo Delgado Province, …
Continue reading “Four Christians killed, villages razed in fresh attack in Mozambique”
The attack represents “a major blow to the education of young girls, which is already quite rare in these parts of the country,” say local sources. The abduction of around 25 students from the Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, in Nigeria’s north-western state of Kebbi, has plunged the community into deep shock. A …
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The West African nation has been classified as suffering from severe, systematic and ongoing religious freedom violations. (Cover image: AI-generated image for illustrative purposes only). Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has received an official communication from the Archdiocese of Kaduna, Nigeria, reporting the abduction of a priest following a violent attack on the …
Continue reading “Nigeria: Priest abducted in the Archdiocese of Kaduna”
This year, the Church commemorated the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, an important anniversary for the entire Christian world. This November, Pope Leo XIV is scheduled to visit Turkey, where the council was held, fulfilling the commitment made by Pope Francis before his death. International Catholic charity Aid to the Church in …
The end of Christianity in Syria would be a great loss, because “the Church stands as a reminder to everyone of the ethics of justice and human dignity as a supreme value.” Syriac Catholic Archbishop Jacques Mourad of Homs, Hama and Nabk was recently in Rome as one of those to take part in the …
Shagufta Kausar was sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy and spent over eight years in prison. She recently shared her story at the launching of the Religious Freedom in the World Report, in Rome. In the summer of 2013, a mob broke into the simple house where Shagufta Kausar lived with her paralyzed husband, Shafqat …
