A parish secretary has been murdered by an unknown assailant in her office at St. Cecile’s Catholic Church, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Mrs. Faustine Brou on Saturday evening, 10 August, was attacked in her office by a man who inflicted multiple knife wounds upon her, in an act of unspeakable violence. She was found alive...
A delegation of the International Pontifical Foundation, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) will be meeting with the Holy Father Pope Francis on Thursday, August 15th 2019 in a gesture to pray for peace in solidarity with the Syrian people, console families who mourn the loss of their dearest ones and commemorate the victims...
Various media reports suggest that the ongoing crisis in Central African Republic (CAR) is caused by a Muslim-Christian conflict or even Islamist efforts to subdue Christians. That is not the case, said one of the country’s prominent Catholic leaders. The ongoing bloodshed, said Bishop Nestor Nongo-Aziagba of Bossangoa, president of the CAR bishops’ conference, is...
WHAT REMAINS OF CHRISTIANITY IN IRAQ FIVE YEARS AFTER THE ISIS INVASION? On August 6, 2014, IS units razed and conquered the Christian settlements of the Nineveh Plain, north of Mosul. Some 120,000 Christians had to flee overnight. Many of them found refuge around the Kurdish city of Erbil. For the following three years, the...
The Catholic Church in Pakistan is important for the country, says Reinhard Backes. He recently visited Pakistan for the fourth time as permanent section leader of the Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), in order to inform himself about the situation of the Christians and the projects that ACN supports. “With more...
Fr. Frans van der Lugt was killed in Homs five years ago. Since then, every day, Christians and Muslims have visited the garden of the Jesuit residence to pray at his tomb. Fr. Frans – in Arabic Abuna Francis – was a Jesuit priest originally from the Netherlands. He died in Homs, Syria, on April 7, 2014,...
