These were the words of the Secretary-General of Aid to the Church in Need, Philipp Ozores, when he announced in Iraq the beginning of a major new phase of support for Christians in the Nineveh Plains, involving the rehabilitation of church-owned properties, to restore a feeling of security to returned residents. Two years after Mosul...
Nicaragua is going through a grave social and political crisis which has left hundreds of people dead, as a result of the harsh repression by police and paramilitary groups close to President Daniel Ortega. The Catholic Church in Nicaragua is a crucial factor in achieving a peaceful solution to the conflict, but this has not...
Pope Francis has said that Asia would be a priority in his pontificate, and he will be visiting the region again next month, when he visits Japan and Thailand in November. The pontiff has spoken about a desire in his youth to serve as a missionary in Asia, but he never got the opportunity with...
Fr. Jude Raj Fernando, the rector of St. Anthony’s shrine in Colombo, Sri Lanka – one of the churches bombed during on Easter Sunday by a group affiliated with Islamic State, has described his pastoral work with victims of the attack as a long journey of faith. Speaking recently of his painful pastoral experience at...
“At least 300 Christians have been forced to leave the towns of Ras al-Ain, Derbasiyah, Tall Tamr and one area of al-Malikiyah, and we are afraid that if the fighting continues, there could be a still greater exodus which might even include the town of Qamishli, where there are 2,300 Christian families living at present.”...
As a young priest, Father Boniface first lived in neighbouring Ethiopia for eight years before he decided to go to South Sudan in 2013. During a recent visit to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) Headquarters, he shares about his mission to the African Country and his experiences throughout these years of war. “After...
Hussein Mohammed was the name he was given at birth. But when the Muslim-born Mohammed came to faith in Jesus Christ, he preferred to be called by his baptismal name of George. George was killed on October 6 in a family honour killing after the Egyptian Christian posted pictures on Facebook acknowledging his conversion from...
Christians in Pakistan continue to suffer mistreatment and violence with the authorities doing apparently nothing about it. The perpetrators are often left to go unpunished and so, a consistent pattern of discrimination and persecution against Christians is now the order of the day in the Asian Country. Naseem Nawab, a Pakistani Catholic nurse who has...
The Filipino bishops have welcomed the government’s move to introduce the study of the Catholic faith and the reading of the Bible in public, primary and secondary schools. “It is a good proposal. We hope it will be approved”, said Archbishop Arturo Bastes, Bishop of Sorsogon, former president of the Bishops’ Commission for the Biblical...
40,000 to 50,000 Christians are already caught up in the escalating conflict in north eastern Syria, as Turkish troops attack Kurdish-led forces. This number is very likely to increase in the coming days. Warnings that the fresh violence could unleash a renewed – and potentially fatal – exodus of Christians from the region have come...
