NIGERIA: Braving the Odds to Reach Out
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NIGERIA: Braving the Odds to Reach Out

Around the world today, many Priests and religious are braving the odds and risking their lives to take the gospel to far-flung and unreached communities. Fr. Samuel Tswam, a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Jalingo in Taraba State, Nigeria is one of such Priests. He takes care of the flock at St. Anthony Pastoral...

EGYPT: Martyrs’ shrine honors 21 victims of ISIS five years after
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EGYPT: Martyrs’ shrine honors 21 victims of ISIS five years after

The shrine to the 21 Christian men beheaded by ISIS on a Libyan beach in February 2015, will hold an exhibition on Feb. 15, honoring the men and marking the fifth anniversary of their death. Twenty of the men were Coptic Orthodox Christians from Egypt. The 21st victim was a Christian from Ghana. They have...

IRAQ: Christian Youth shares Life after ISIS
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IRAQ: Christian Youth shares Life after ISIS

After fleeing ISIS, a young Syriac Orthodox man talks to Aid to the Church in Need. Wissam Ablahad (26) is a Syriac Orthodox young man who lives with his parents and two siblings in the township of Ba’ashiqah, on the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq. Wissam and his family, like many thousands of Christian families...

MALI: The whereabouts of Sr. Gloria, kidnapped 3 years ago still unknown
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MALI: The whereabouts of Sr. Gloria, kidnapped 3 years ago still unknown

7th February 2020 marks exactly 3 years since Sister Gloria Cecilia Narvaez Argoti was kidnapped by jihadists in the Franciscan mission where she lived and worked in Karangasso, Mali, close to the border with Burkina Faso. Since September 2018, when a video was released with her sister and another hostage, the French doctor Sophie Petronin,...

PAKISTAN: Parents of ‘abducted’ girl call out for help
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PAKISTAN: Parents of ‘abducted’ girl call out for help

THE parents of Huma Younus – the girl at the centre of an abduction, forced marriage and conversion case – have begged the international community for help, fearing her case will be deliberately delayed for several years until she “turns 18”. In an exclusive video message to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need...

MOZAMBIQUE: Bishop says attacks are “a daily tragedy”
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MOZAMBIQUE: Bishop says attacks are “a daily tragedy”

Attacks in northern Mozambique have already caused more than 500 deaths and thousands of displaced people since October 2017. Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need, Bishop of Pemba, Msgr Luiz Fernando Lisboa speaks of the jihadist threat, the inability of the security forces to contain this wave of violence and the help that...

NIGERIA: Kidnapped Seminarian found dead
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NIGERIA: Kidnapped Seminarian found dead

The Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need is greatly saddened and dismayed at the murder of the 18-year-old Nigerian seminarian, Michael Nnadi  who was abducted by armed assailants, along with three other seminarians, on 8th January this year from the Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna in northern Nigeria. Whereas his three fellow students...

PAKISTAN: Freedom at Last for 40 Christians After 5 Years in Prison
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PAKISTAN: Freedom at Last for 40 Christians After 5 Years in Prison

Christians across Pakistan are rejoicing after a court (Wednesday, 29th January) acquitted 40 men jailed for alleged involvement in the lynching of two people in a district outside Lahore. The 40 individuals, almost all of them Christians, shouted “Alleluia, Praise God” as the anti-terrorism court in Lahore ordered their release after nearly five years in...

PAKISTAN: Court validates forced marriage of kidnapped Christian girl by invoking Islamic law
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PAKISTAN: Court validates forced marriage of kidnapped Christian girl by invoking Islamic law

The Pakistani Christian community is shocked by the application of Islamic law, ‘sharia’, by the Karachi Supreme Court in a kidnapping case that has mobilized international public opinion. Ignoring the law itself, which does not allow the marriage of minors, the judges yesterday validated the forced marriage of Huma Younus, a Christian girl, just 14...

VENEZUELA: Pastoral Care for the Poorest of the Poor
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VENEZUELA: Pastoral Care for the Poorest of the Poor

Like any other country, Venezuela has its poorer and more affluent regions. While the people living in the capital city of Caracas are doing fairly well in spite of the current economic crisis, the situation in rural areas is at times disastrous. The work of Father Angel Orellana illustrates how the Church helps those struggling...