IRAQ - Sako –Message to Muslims during Ramadan Below is the letter of Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, Chaldean Patriarch of Babylon, to Muslims on the month of Ramadan. The text has been provided by the Patriarchate:Sisters and Brothers,We as a Church wish you a “Ramadan – Fasting” and bind our wishes [...]
VATICAN - Committee appointed to distribute money collected for Ukraine The Vatican announced that a committee has been appointed that will be responsible for the distribution of the funds gathered in the Pope’s recent special collection for Ukraine. The Holy See press office announced:“As is known, following the tragic hostilities in the [...]
MEXICO - Bishop appeals for end to violence and murders Bishop José de Jesús Martínez Zepeda of Irapuato is appealing for peace in Mexico after years of shockingly high murder rates. According to Mexico’s National Institute for Statistics and Geography, between 2007 and 2014 there were 164,345 homicides in the country. The [...]
MALI - Interview with Father Germain Arama Father Germain was interviewed when he visited ACN Head Office in Königstein on Thursday, 21 April 2016. He was born in Mopti, in central Mali, studied at the seminary in Bamako, and is now the diocesan bursar of the diocese of Mopti, which serves a [...]
IRAQ - Refugee children make First Communion in Erbil camp There is a moment of joy in the bleakness of life for displaced Iraqi Christians. A record number of refugee children are making their First Communion in a refugee camp in Erbil. Out of the 5,500 people living in Erbil’s Aishty 2 [...]
“We can not remain silent" Interview with Karin Maria Fenbert, CEO of ACN , by Tobias Lehner about the initiative to end discrimination against Christian refugees in Germany Christian relief and human rights organizations including ACN have launched a much-publicized appeal highlighting the worrying situation in German refugee camps. Christians and other [...]
Pope plans historic visit to Sweden in October It has just been announced that Pope Francis will visit Sweden to participate in events on the 31st of October for the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The full programme of the trip has not been finalised but according to [...]
HOLY LAND - “A toxic mix of religious extremism and nationalism” Many Christians in Israel are scared. They feel threatened by Jewish extremists in word and deed. The arson attack carried out by Jewish extremists in June of last year on the Benedictine monastery of Tabgha made international news. “What comes next?” [...]
CUBA - Government gives back expropriated Havana chapel that had been turned into a shop After more than fifty years, the government of Cuba returned a former chapel dedicated to St Therese of the Child Jesus in the parish of Nuevitas to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Camagüey. The chapel had been [...]
SRI LANKA - Christians prevented from burying their dead Buddhism extremism combined with increasing nationalism has led to an surge in Christian persecution. A leading human rights lawyer, whose name cannot be disclosed for security reasons, said there have been 120 known cases of persecution since the middle of 2015, in addition [...]