Pope Francis will visit Milan and Genoa in 2017   The Holy See Press Office confirmed that Pope Francis will visit two prominent northern Italian cities in 2017. First, on March 25, the Pope will visit Milan. Cardinal Scola, Archbishop of Milan, announced the Pope’s visit saying: “this is a sign of the Holy Father’s...

SYRIA – “The world needs a revolution against violence”  – interview with Fr Jacques Mourad   This Syrian monk was kept hostage by IS for five months – but still speaks out for reconciliation  Father Jacques Mourad belongs to the Syrian order “Mar Mousa al-habashi” (“Saint Moses of Abyssinia”). He was prior of Mar Elian monastery,...

CONGO  – Interview – “Mystery of faith in a broken land”   Between 16t – 29August 2016 a delegation from the international Catholic Charity Aid to the Church in Need travelled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The reason of the trip was to see what were the most urgent needs in Kivu, Eastern side...

Flood of conversions to Christianity in the Islamic world   A silent upheaval is taking place in many countries worldwide – thousands of Muslims are converting to Christianity. Even more surprising, they are doing so knowing that they will be rejected by their families, marginalized and even killed.  Apostasy (giving up the Muslim faith) is...

NIGER – US missionary kidnapped by armed jihadists   An American missionary working in Niger was forced to strip down to his underwear and then kidnapped from his home by armed men. 55-year-old Jeffery Woodke from California is a longtime aid worker with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) charity. He has spent the last 25 years...

PAKISTAN – All Christian TV networks closed down for lack of permits   11 Christian television channels in Pakistan broadcasting in Urdu were ordered to stop transmitting, leaving the country’s 2.8 million Christians with no public media presence for the first time in nearly two decades. The Pakistani Media Regulatory Authority said they were illegal” and...

ACN Malta thanks children who took part in Rosary for Peace on 18 Oct   ACN Malta would like to thank all the children, schools and organisations who joined in the Prayer for Peace event by reciting the Rosary on 18 October. Special thanks goes to the school heads and teachers for all their hard...

Will Pope’s visit to Georgia bring closer relations between Catholics and Orthodox?   It is widely thought that the success of the recent Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church was strongly influenced by Pope Francis’ meeting with the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, in Cuba last February. The...

‘Without education Syrian children will be the next generation of IS’   Bearing samples of drawing and messages gathered from 1.2 million Muslim and Christian children from schools in Homs, Aleppo and Damascus, Syria, an appeal for peace was brought by representatives of the three main churches in Syria to policymakers at the highest levels...

CUBA – “We have neither gold nor silver, but what we have, we give”   Hurricane Matthew leaves a trail of destruction and tears in eastern Cuba “Really, I don’t know how to begin to describe what we’ve been through in the last few days”, writes Bishop Wilfredo Pino Estévez of the diocese of Guantánamo-Baracoa in...