The campaign to free a 14-year-old Christian girl from the clutches of a man who abducted her and held her hostage in his home in Pakistan lies in tatters after Lahore High Court unexpectedly decided in his favour. Judge Raja Muhammad Shahid Abbasi yesterday (Tuesday, 4th August) overturned last week’s ruling of the Faisalabad District...
Sister Shobka Rani Talari smiles when she gets on her new moped. She is not daunted by the poor roads that she often has to take into the jungle as she carries out her work for the mission in Chhaygaon, which is located in the Archdiocese of Guwahati in the impoverished north-eastern part of India....
Systematic violence against Nigerian Christians by Fulani herdsmen constitutes genocide, according to a leading Catholic bishop who stressed that Muslims are also falling foul of the violence. Following the execution of five aid workers by Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP), Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN)...
Living trapped in addiction is a hell, not only for the addict but also for his family and all those around him. The Fazendas – the “Farms of Hope” – seek to give an answer to this suffering. Originating in Brazil, today there are 139 Fazendas in 22 countries around the world. Analía Rodríguez is...
Six years after IS-invasion a Church´s reconstruction fuels Christian´s hope On August 6, 2014, IS units conquered and razed to the ground the Christian settlements of the Nineveh Plain, north and east of Mosul. Some 120,000 Christians had to flee overnight. Qaraqosh-Baghdeda, 20 miles east of Mosul, was the largest Christian city in Iraq. After...
A high-profile minority groups’ politician championing human rights in Pakistan, Joel Amir Sahotra has told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that hard-liners in Pakistan are forcing Christians out of Muslim neighbourhoods and refusing to give them lodgings. Speaking on the recent events in Pakistan, specifically on the death of a Christian man Nadeem...
A 400-year-old crucifix was set ablaze when Managua Cathedral suffered the latest in a series of anti-Christian incidents in Nicaragua. According to a statement by the archdiocese of Managua, on Friday 31 July a man entered the Chapel of the Precious Blood, in the Managua cathedral, and threw a firebomb, partially destroying a precious 17th...
ACN (Malta) congratulates Rev Prof Hector Scerri, Ecclesiastical Assistant of ACN (Malta) on his appointment by Pope Francis as Consultant for another 5 years for the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. He will be in charge of matters related to the Ecumenical Dialogue between various Churches and Christian traditions. Rev Prof Hector...
Chinese communist authorities have ordered poor Christian villagers to remove Christian images from their homes and replace them with portraits of Chairman Mao and President Xi Jinping or risk losing their welfare benefits. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has continued its program of “Sinicization” of religion by channeling religious fervor in the country toward the...
Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister has told an online forum in mid-July that efforts to counter persecution were now required because the entire fabric of human rights was at stake — even in the West — if religious freedom continued to be attacked. He made his remarks on the first anniversary of the...
