Aid to the Church in Need, ACN, has helped rebuild 6,000 homes for Christians from Iraq who returned after the fall of the Islamic State.
Now, it is also rebuilding churches structures. One example is the Al-Tahira Cathedral in Qaraqosh, the country's largest Christian church.
It is one of the more than 5,230 projects that the organization has sustained in the last year, in 139 countries.
CARD. MAURO PIACENZA
President, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN)
“We have an interesting characteristic, pastoral support - and here I emphasize pastoral - to the suffering Church. It is not simply support, so to speak 'solidarity,' but support moved by prayer and, therefore, by charity. Aid to the Church in Need began with this trait.”
ACN has 330,000 small and large benefactors. In addition to thanking them for their donations, the pontifical foundation explained in its last activities report, how they spent the 106 million raised in 2019.
Aid to the Church in Need is known for its work in helping persecuted Christians and raising awareness of their current situation. Today, there are at least 200 million who cannot freely practice their faith, and who suffer harassment or discrimination in more than 40 countries. For example, ACN supported 2019 Christian projects in Nigeria, Cameroon and Burkina Faso, where jihadist fundamentalism and terrorism is raging.
RAFAEL D’AQUI
African department of ACN for the Sahel region
“Also our project partners informed us that in the area of the Chad Lake, in Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad, Boko Haram recrudesces its presence using new horror strategies, such as cutting off the ears of the village women as a punishment for not having obeyed their 'preaching'.”
In Syria, where the population is paying the consequences of 10 years of war, they delivered emergency and survival aid.
REGINA LYNCH
Director of ACN Project Department
“Christians have a right to stay in their native land; our material aid enables Christian families to survive, and in this way to also help Christians to remain in the Middle East. The situation of our brothers and sisters in the cradle of our faith remains vulnerable, but we will continue to do all what is in our hands to support them.”
Beyond geographical limits, ACN helps one in 10 priests for their livelihood, pastoral and social work. They also help one in seven seminarians so that they can continue their formation.
Also, there are around 13,000 religious, who work in war zones, slums and isolated areas. Now the priority of Aid to the Church in Need is to support them in the pandemic, so that they can continue caring for so many forgotten people.
CARD. MAURO PIACENZA
President, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN)
“I would like to say thank you for remaining spiritually sound and for not loosing sight of the causes as to why the Church is suffering.”
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