The role of the Ecclesiastical Assistant is to foster and strengthen the spiritual life at every level of ACN, to provide spiritual guidance and oversight, to promote ecclesial communion, and to represent the Church and her pastoral authority within the day-to-day life and work of the Foundation. As a Pontifical Foundation, this spiritual and ecclesial dimension is fundamental to ACN’s identity, mission and activity.

As he prepares for his next mission, Fr Anton shared what he learned from his experience. 

“When I had the opportunity to come to know ACN from within and began making my first project trips, I was deeply impressed and, at the same time, pleasantly surprised to see how concretely the Church, through ACN, reaches even the most remote areas, offering assistance to alleviate suffering and to bring the salvation found in Christ. I was particularly moved by the steadfast generosity and willingness to help shown by so many of our benefactors, as well as by the personal way in which ACN accompanies its project partners throughout the world.

Father Anton Lässer. Outgoing Ecclesiastical Assistant

“Many of our benefactors are not wealthy themselves, and yet they faithfully contribute a small amount each month to support the work of ACN and pray for their suffering brothers and sisters in the faith. This is precisely what makes this charity so special: it is sustained by a love that is rooted in faith and expressed in action – by people who genuinely take the needs and suffering of others to heart,” he explained.

Fr Anton, an Austrian Passionist, emphasises that ACN is far more than a secular non-governmental organisation. “ACN belongs to the Holy See and fulfils its mission by helping the suffering and persecuted Church to carry out her fundamental task: ultimately, to bring Christ and His salvation to people. We are called to be, and desire to remain, a pastoral charity. At its heart, this means cooperating with Christ, the true Good Shepherd. Of course, this is possible only if Christ lives in us; if He does not dwell within us, our efforts will ultimately not bear fruit.

“In this sense, the primary task of ACN’s International Ecclesiastical Assistant and the Ecclesiastical Assistants in the national offices is to foster and safeguard the spiritual life of faith at every level of the charity: among the staff at our international headquarters and in the national offices, among our benefactors, and throughout our project work. Our task is to help them draw ever more deeply from the Word of God, the Holy Eucharist and the other sources of Catholic life, so that they may live and act as true disciples of Christ.”

Among his most profound experiences, he recalls his journey to Ukraine and, more recently, to Russia.

“I encountered children who, because of the trauma they had suffered, were no longer able to speak and who were painting icons as part of their therapy. I met people who had returned from the front gravely wounded, having lost limbs or their sight. I also met a priest who accompanies more than twenty groups of women who have lost their husbands, their children, or both. These encounters made me profoundly aware of the immense destructive power of war and of how it wounds and burdens people for generations, often leaving them deeply scarred in their souls. War is evil through and through, while peace is an immensely precious good. We should pray for it every day with genuine longing.”

Pope’s Meeting with ecclesiastical assistants from national offices of ACN

Yet equally moving – and something that strengthened his faith anew – was witnessing, in so many places, the extraordinary acts of love and generosity of which the Holy Spirit makes people capable, often precisely in the midst of war or in situations that seem humanly impossible to overcome.

“I remember a community of religious sisters in Lebanon who had taken in 800 refugees at their convent. Day after day, they struggled to provide these people with food and constantly had to find new solutions to the many challenges they faced. Despite getting very little sleep and giving of themselves tirelessly, they were full of ideas and showed remarkable creativity in their love for people who were exhausted and had lost their homes. You could almost see how the Holy Spirit inspired them and enabled them to go beyond what they themselves thought possible. To have been able to witness and share in so many situations like this was, for me, a special grace – deeply edifying and profoundly beautiful.”

“ACN makes the impossible possible”

Fr Friedrich Bechina, who is also Austrian, joins ACN International following two decades of service in the Congregation for Catholic Education (currently the Dicastery of Culture and Education), in Rome. Although he is new to the job of ecclesiastical assistant, he has known and worked with ACN for years.

“My first encounter with ACN was through my grandparents and my parents, because they were donors. Later, when I worked for the Holy See, I had quite an interesting relationship with the people here, especially the ones involved in projects in education and scholarships, because at the Vatican I worked with higher education, so I had a large network of information and contacts.”

After all this time working at the strategic level, Fr Bechina says “now I get the impression I’m coming closer to where the life of the Church is.”

“I’m coming down from the big strategies, which I still appreciate, because they are so important, but it doesn’t help if on the ground it’s not possible. Now I’m working for an organisation whose primary purpose is to make possible what seems impossible, and this can only happen because there are so many people who believe in it, and who put all their energy, their prayers, their hearts and a lot of money, into this. To be part of this is really very challenging, and it gives me great joy.”

To mark the beginning of his term as ecclesiastical assistant of ACN International, Fr Bechina has a special message for all the benefactors. “Thank you! You are the ones who make this possible. We are living in a world of time and space, and we need resources to give education, to help people to grow in their faith, to build infrastructure where people can worship God.”

“Here at the headquarters of ACN International we are listening to those in need, and in doing so we discover that the Holy Spirit has been there long before us!”

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Pope Leo joined hundreds of children at the Grotto of Lourdes in the Vatican Gardens on Thursday, 1 October, to pray the Rosary for peace, launching a global week of prayer as part of “One Million Children Praying the Rosary”, an international initiative promoted by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

“I am truly happy to be with you,” said the Holy Father as he addressed the children. Leo XIV explicitly thanked ACN “for having promoted this initiative and for the great work it does”, before inviting those present to ask together for a special gift: “peace for all the children of the world, especially for those who live where there is war”.

While one million children around the world offered up the Rosary for peace, about 1,300 of those voices were coming from the Vatican Gardens on the first day of the month dedicated to the Rosary—October 1. Children from parishes and schools around Rome gathered at the Grotto of Lourdes with Pope Leo XIV to kick off the Aid to the Church in Need initiative “One Million Children Praying the Rosary”.

The initiative runs from 1 to 7 October and unites children, families, schools, parishes, and communities around the world in a single prayer.

“One million children praying with us” 

The Pope made it clear to the children gathered in Rome that this initiative has a global scope. 

“This evening and during these days, it is not just us praying. Throughout the world, a million children are praying with us. A million!” he stated.

Leo XIV invited them to imagine “fifty million Hail Marys” rising to heaven “from everywhere and in all the languages of the earth”, united like a great Rosary crown encompassing continents, peoples, and nations.

Data collected by ACN already offers a first picture of this global scale. By 12:11 UTC on 1 October, the campaign’s online platform had recorded 313,938 prayers from 94 countries. This figure reflects only the registrations recorded online. Many parishes, schools, families, and communities join the initiative without formally registering, especially in places where internet access is severely limited or non-existent. The records also show the extraordinary geographical reach of the campaign, with participation coming from countries as diverse and distant as Finland, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Japan, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, alongside countries with widespread participation such as Brazil, Poland, India, the Philippines, and Ukraine.

A prayer that looks to the world’s suffering

Upon receiving the Holy Father, Cardinal Kurt Koch recalled that the initiative invites children to discover that they too can bring to Jesus, alongside Mary, “the sufferings of the world”. 

“Languages and distances are different, but the hope that unites us is one,” he stated. During the preparation, videos and testimonies brought children closer to some of the realities that would be especially present in the prayer: Ukraine, the Holy Land and the Middle East, Pakistan, South Sudan, Venezuela, and Cuba. In his greeting to the Pope, Koch remembered the children of Ukraine and the victims of war; the families in Syria, Lebanon, and the Holy Land forced to leave their homes; persecuted Christians in Pakistan and elsewhere; the need for reconciliation in South Sudan; and families in Cuba and Venezuela, that they might not lose hope.

Vatican, October 1, 2026. At the Grotto of Lourdes in the Vatican Gardens, 1,300 people—700 of whom are children—join Pope Leo in praying the Rosary in five languages, offering up the Marian prayer for an end to violence around the world.

“Prayer also educates our hearts towards peace, forgiveness, and caring for others,” noted the cardinal, who asked the Pope for his blessing so that children might learn, with Mary, to be “little peacemakers”.

Before the arrival of the Holy Father, the children took part in a preparatory program featuring music, testimonies, and interactive activities designed to lead them progressively towards praying the Rosary. Musical animation was provided by KISI, featuring children from four countries, as well as a choir and musicians from the Shalom Community.

“This is how peace grows” 

Finally, Leo XIV insisted that prayer must have a concrete reflection in daily life. He encouraged the children to do good at home, at school, during catechism, and while playing and doing sports. “Prayers must always be accompanied by good deeds, by acts of love. This is how peace grows!” he concluded.

The Rosary week of prayer for peace will end today 7 October. Families, schools, parishes, and communities wishing to join can still register their participation and download campaign materials on the “One Million Children Praying the Rosary” page.

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More than six months after their forced displacement from Alma el-Chaab, the residents of this village in southern Lebanon remain deeply attached to their land. In September, around ten farmers obtained limited permission to clean their olive groves and clear overgrown plots. They now hope to receive a new authorisation allowing them to harvest their olives, with the picking season expected to begin after mid-October.

In the region, some olive groves and agricultural lands were destroyed or severely damaged during the conflict. During its most recent visit in May 2025, an ACN delegation witnessed this firsthand. For many families in the south, the uncertainty concerns not only whether they will be allowed to harvest, but also whether they will find trees still capable of producing fruit.

For the people of Alma el-Chaab, the significance of the harvest goes beyond agriculture, as it would represent a first step toward returning home. “If this stage succeeds, we will be moving along the path we hope to follow,” explains their parish priest, Chorbishop Maroun Ghafari. For now, however, they are still not permitted to return to live in their village and remain displaced across different regions of Lebanon.

A community dispersed yet united in prayer

While the olive trees nurture the common hope of returning home, prayer sustains it, remaining at the heart of the life of the dispersed community of Alma el-Chaab. For Fr Ghafari, “prayer in general, and especially the rosary, remains the strongest spiritual weapon for facing visible and invisible enemies.”

Last year, students at the School of the Sisters of the Holy Family participated in ACN’s “One Million Children Praying the Rosary” initiative. Although the school was closed for the 2026–2027 academic year by decision of the congregation, the students, now dispersed among different schools throughout the country, can still join the prayer campaign from 1 to 7 October wherever it is being held.

On 1 October, the first day of the month traditionally dedicated to the Rosary, Pope Leo XIV joined hundreds of children in the Vatican Gardens to pray for peace and unity, including for the families of Lebanon. In Alma el-Chaab, where olive trees are central to both daily life and attachment to the land, their symbolism as a sign of peace resonates deeply with this rosary prayer.

Between a smile and a tear

For the villagers, the return of peace is inseparable from the hope of being able to return home. Some were even able to revisit the village briefly during the summer.

Thanks to a coordinated effort involving several organisations and local stakeholders, weekly visits were organised in July and August. Around 50 people were able to participate in supervised convoys. The joy of seeing their homes again was sometimes mixed with the pain of witnessing the damage.

“Between a smile and a tear, these visits summarise part of what we are living through,” says Fr Ghafari.

No visits of this kind could be organised in September because of the situation on the ground.

Fr Maroun Youssef Ghafari, the Maronite parish priest of Alma el-Chaab on the border with Israel

“Our destiny should be similar to that of the Christian villages in the South that continue to hold fast to their land,” says the parish priest of Alma el-Chaab, referring to Rmeich, Debel and Ain Ebel.

According to him, around one hundred people would be ready to go back. However, their return remains dependent on a political decision and on access to essential necessities such as food, medicine, drinking water, basic supplies, fuel and financial support.

Residents who return may also be required to remain within a strictly defined geographical area and may not be permitted to move freely. In certain circumstances, even travel for medical emergencies could be subject to specific procedures. The parish is therefore working to secure a safe corridor for such situations.

In the meantime, residents are trying to continue their lives away from the village.

“Without Divine Providence, the displaced families would have died of hunger,” Fr Ghafari says.

After more than six months of displacement, financial difficulties are immense. Food, rent, school fees and medicines represent major burdens. Public assistance remains limited, and food parcel distributions to the poorest families are becoming increasingly rare, explains the Maronite chorbishop.

The parish is working with the village crisis committee to obtain support, even if only partial, for school pupils and university students. As for ACN, the pontifical foundation continues to support families in the region, particularly through programmes that help children remain in education.

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September marks the resumption of school for most of the northern hemisphere, but in many regions, including the Middle East, the return to classes is marked by increasing difficulties.

The presence of Christian institutions, especially schools, is crucial to keeping Christian communities stable in a Middle East where uncertainty and conflict continue to prevail. Pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has been helping schools across the Middle East afloat during these years of crisis.

In the Holy Land, Syria and Lebanon, ACN is helping over 15 thousand students to remain in over 200 different Christian schools. At the same time, almost 2500 teachers are benefitting from financial aid from the foundation.

The vast majority of these schools serve not only Christians but also members of other religions, and are sometimes the only educational space which actively promotes coexistence and tolerance, thereby providing a fundamental service to the entire society. 

Stationary/ Booklets for 28,000 students from assisted schools executed by the Maronite Sisters of the Holy Family (Academic year 2025/ 2026)

Five years of support for Lebanese schools

Lebanon is the country which receives most support for schools from ACN. In 2021 the small country was going through a terrible financial crisis, following the collapse of the banking system. Many families lost their savings, and were no longer able to afford to pay tuition fees for their children. 

To help prevent the collapse of the whole education system, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) stepped in to help pay tuition fees for close to 13,500 students and salaries for over 1000 teachers across around 170 schools.

At the time Marielle Boutros, who coordinates ACN projects in Lebanon, already feared the situation could get worse, but was far from imagining it could get as bad as it did. 

“The situation five years ago was really very bad, and we had little hope for the future. If you’d asked us, we’d say we didn’t know how things might be in a further five years. But we didn’t imagine that it would go this far”, she explains. 

In that time Lebanon suffered two wars, with Israel launching air strikes in several parts of the country and even invading the south. 

“In 2024 we had displacement, and in the south of Lebanon people were not able to pay tuition fees, many of them lost access to their agriculturchural fields. But the 2026 war has been worse, because some damages are irreparable. It’s not that people don’t have access to their lands, it’s that there is nothing to go back to.” 

Naturally, the situation has affected the schools as well. “Some have continued to teach online, and some have reopened since the ceasefire. But the ones in more dangerous areas don’t risk it, because there are still airstrikes in the south. And then there are some schools that don’t have any students, because they have all left and are scattered over the country.” 

In this context, ACN’s support for schools is more important than ever. “We are still in a state of war, and nobody knows what is going to happen. If you are a parent, even in a safer area, you are not going to spend the little you have on tuition fees when you can’t be sure if you will have the money to feed your family.”

“And then we have the schools in the affected areas. The teachers have to be paid, in order to maintain their link to the school and avoid losing them, because we don’t have a pool of talented teachers as we did before, due to emigration,” Marielle Boutros adds. 

Marielle Boutros

Boutros also oversees ACN projects in Syria, where, she says, the situation remains “stable”, but not in a good way. “The general feeling in Syria is of uncertainty, and uncertainty has become the new stability. It hasn’t turned into positive things, or negative things yet.”

“But the economic situation is very bad, and it is important that we understand that Syria is not out of the crisis yet,” Marielle Boutros explains.

State pressure

The situation for schools in the Holy Land is also particularly sensitive at the moment. Christian schools in East Jerusalem, for example, have come under great pressure from the Israeli Government. In January the Government passed a law banning new teachers with diplomas from West Bank universities from teaching in schools in Israel. 

More recently dozens of teachers who live in the West Bank did not have their permits to enter Israel renewed. Christian schools in Israel declared a strike, leading the Government to relent and to renew the permits, although in some cases for only a few weeks.

The Christian churches in the Holy Land have a strong network of schools, which often serve Muslim students as well. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, for example, runs 43 schools, 35 kindergartens, 12 Schools in Palestine, 24 in Jordan and 6 in Israel, which serve around 20 thousand students, including 6000 in the West Bank and Gaza. ACN support goes especially to the poorest members of the Christian community, to allow them to have access to an education of excellence that also helps them to maintain their religious values. 

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Fr Pier Luigi Maccalli was working as a missionary in Boamanga, Niger, when he was kidnapped by armed men, on 17 September, 2018, and transported across the border into Mali. He soon realised these were not common criminals, but Islamist fundamentalists. That was the beginning of an ordeal that would change his life.

In this interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) he opens up about the suffering experienced over the next 750 days, until he was released. 

You wrote a book called “I Choose Not to Hate”, in which you call for an end to war and violence. Was this book inspired by your experience in captivity?

I felt the need to write this book to respond to the countless images and words on television and in the media praising rearmament and war. I saw the true face of war up close; I was kept chained as a hostage and prisoner for more than two years and, precisely because I experienced such inhumanity first-hand, I felt compelled to make my voice heard. Peace is possible, but not in the way the world offers it, with bombs and massacres of the innocent. There is an alternative to war. This book describes the two banks of the river of peace, which are two negatives: no to violence and no to killing. From these two banks, we can feed the river of peace with a variety of creative actions and words, in harmony with goodness, non-violence and life, but never death.

On 17 September, it will be eight years since you were kidnapped. What memories do you hold of that day? What shocked you the most when you realised that you had indeed been abducted and that you would likely spend a long period in captivity, as turned out to be the case?

When I realized that my kidnappers were not common criminals, as I initially thought, but jihadists, it was like a punch in the gut. A heavy stone fell on me and crushed me. The weight was too much, and I cried tears of despair. I remember that every day we would set off on a motorbike, getting further away from the places I knew, and my anguish grew as I realised it would become increasingly difficult to escape.

Father Pier Luigi Maccalli shows remainings from his hostage: a cross, a rosary and a part of a chain. Father Maccalli was guest during red week of ACN Germany. He was kidnapped for two years by Islamist terrorists in Subsahran Africa.

How did this experience change you? Is there a Fr Maccalli before and after the experience of captivity?

This ordeal changed my perspective on life, mission, and God. Through this experience, I learned to know myself better and to understand my own fragilities; I understood just how challenging and decisive Jesus’ commandment to love our enemies really is. I confess that these words challenged me during my imprisonment, and I asked myself: “How can I love these people who have taken away my freedom, chained me every day, and threatened me with death?”. 

It was only when I was able to say, alongside the man on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, that I was able to fully understand the new logic of the Beatitudes. 

My book focuses on the peace that emerges from the logic of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Did you ever feel hatred within you?

No! Hatred is a dead end. I felt deep pity for my captors. They are young men brainwashed by propaganda videos and plagued by so much illiteracy. It made me sad to see that those young people, for whose better future I had given my life, were wasting theirs for an ideal of death and violence. I felt a sense of defeat as a missionary. And I vented my anger at God; I felt like Job arguing with God.

Did you ever think you might die?

I was even explicitly threatened. It was 23 May – I remember it well – and a jihadist told me: “At the first opportunity, I’m going to put a bullet in your forehead”. And he was not joking. 

But I told myself that even if he took my life abruptly, I could consider my missionary life complete. The year before the kidnapping, we had opened a new church in Boamanga and I ordered the seven spiritual and corporal works of mercy to be written on the seven doors leading into it; I told myself that this was my testament to the community. Anyone entering that church will remember that feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, visiting the sick and the imprisoned, clothing the naked and the vulnerable… is the path to entering the Kingdom: at the end of life, we will be judged by love.

What was it like to pray while in captivity, surrounded by Islamic terrorists? Was prayer also a form of resistance?

Rather than resistance, it was a dedication to a kingdom of peace. I made a rosary out of cloth and that, together with spontaneous prayers, kept me connected to my family and to the communities for which I interceded. I learned to be a missionary with my heart, not with my feet. I prayed the prayer of the heart and walked with my heart along the paths I used to travel on foot or by car. Perhaps prayer was my way of existing every day. I discovered, in that captivity, that praying is to counter the solitude of feeling abandoned by God. It is crying out my desire to feel loved by a Father who is not indifferent to the cry of His children.

Photo: Father Pierluigi Maccalli during holy mass – before his abduction © Societé des Missions Africanes (SMA)There is more Islamic terrorism today than in September 2018, when you were kidnapped. Jihadist groups continue to threaten Mali and Niger but also Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and even Cabo Delgado, in Mozambique. What message do you have for these populations, especially the Christian communities that fall victim to attacks by these armed groups?

I would like to thank them for their testimony of faithfulness and presence in regions of insecurity. During my imprisonment, I remembered these words of Jesus: “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.” I admit that it was difficult for me to rejoice, but it comforted me to know that I was in communion with Jesus. I was on a mission because of Him. The insults were directed at me, but in reality, I was there because of Him; Jesus was the target. And I thought: these people believe that holy war (jihad) is meant to glorify God, but they do not realize that they are defying the God of Jesus. I could rest easy; the One who sent me was on the front line with me. The cause is His, just as the mission is God’s.

As you know, ACN’s mission includes supporting Christian communities that are victims of persecution and violence. During your captivity, ACN repeatedly appealed for your release and asked the world to pray for you. How do you view and follow the pontifical foundation’s work?

My thanks go to everyone who prayed for my release. I am convinced that my freedom is the result of the prayers of many: monasteries, parish communities, and many ordinary believers. The Vatican and its institutions closely followed my plight, which culminated in a special audience with Pope Francis on 9 November 2020. To all of them, my sincere thanks, and I renew my invitation to everyone to believe and hope, to pray and to work for peace.

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Pope Leo XIV will join hundreds of children in praying the Rosary for peace on 1 October at the Lourdes Grotto in the Vatican Gardens. The event will begin at 5:00 p.m., with the Pope joining the children later to pray the Rosary.

Between 700 and 1,000 children from schools and parishes in Rome are expected to attend. Together with the Holy Father, they will pray in spiritual union with children, families, schools and Christian communities around the world.

The gathering will mark the beginning of the worldwide week of prayer for the “One Million Children Praying the Rosary” initiative, promoted by the Pontifical Foundation

Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) for more than 20 years. This year, for the first time, the campaign will take place over an entire week, from 1 to 7 October, allowing dioceses, parishes, schools, communities and families on different continents to choose the day best suited to their pastoral circumstances, while remaining united in the same intention of prayer for peace and unity.

The week will culminate on 7 October, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Children around the world united in prayer

While children in Rome pray with Pope Leo XIV, similar initiatives are already being prepared in many countries, from indigenous communities in the Bolivian Amazon to parishes in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and many other places affected by war, poverty or instability.

In Sudan, where an ongoing war continues to cause immense suffering, Fr Franck Mandozi of the Pastoral Region of Kosti has confirmed that children from several parishes and schools will take part.

Thousands of kilometres away, in a Tsimané indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon, Sister Patricia Alejandra Botello López says that children are already praying the Rosary in both T’siman and Spanish.

In Zimbabwe, St Christopher’s Parish in the Archdiocese of Bulawayo will gather children on Sunday, 4 October. In the weeks that follow, parish priest Fr Charles Mafurutu also intends to travel to remote communities and Mass centres scattered across the parish territory, some many kilometres away.

In Paraguay, Radio Pa’i Puku plans to promote the initiative through its broadcasts and to transmit live the Rosary prayed by children at the parish of San Eugenio de Mazenod, inviting families, schools, parishes and catechists to join in prayer.

A prayer for a wounded world

The 2026 campaign is inspired by the message of Fatima: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.”

In this year’s invitation to participants, Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of ACN International and Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, recalls that the Immaculate Heart of Mary represents a life entirely open to the Holy Spirit and presents Mary as a model of faith, love and prayer.

The initiative takes on particular significance at a time when millions of people are facing war, violence, persecution, poverty and uncertainty.

In this context, the prayer of children is intended as a simple but universal sign of trust and hope: children of different languages, cultures and countries united in the same prayer for peace.

From a small group in Venezuela to a worldwide prayer movement

The “One Million Children Praying the Rosary” initiative began in Venezuela in 2005 and has gradually grown into a worldwide prayer movement involving children, families, parishes, schools and Church groups on every continent.

The campaign is inspired by the words attributed to Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina:

“When one million children pray the Rosary, the world will change.”

The invitation is not addressed only to children. ACN also encourages parents, teachers, priests, religious, catechists and families to pray with them. It is not necessary to pray the entire Rosary: even a single decade, prayed in faith, can become part of this worldwide chain of prayer.

ACN provides prayer materials in several languages and invites participants to register their participation, helping to make visible on a map the network of children joining the prayer in different countries.

The international initiative is organised in collaboration with the Shrine of Fatima, the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network and the World Apostolate of Fatima. This year, World Rosary Day is also joining the campaign for the first time.

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The international president of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Cardinal Kurt Koch, has called on the pontifical foundation to continue to bear witness to the truth and beauty of the Gospel, with joy and courage. 

Speaking to a meeting of ecclesiastical assistants of the national offices of ACN, Cardinal Koch defined the nature of the Church as one of mission. 

“The Church as a whole is dedicated to the transmission of the faith and to mission, though only if it not only proclaims the Word of God but is itself a place where God is present, so that people may experience that the Church exists first and foremost ‘for God’s sake’. It is not an end in itself, but exists so that a glimpse of God may emerge in the world,” said the Swiss cardinal, adding that “from its very inception, Christianity has understood itself as a religion entrusted with a universal mission addressed to all people and nations.”

However, he explained, this mission can only be carried out by people who are prepared to convey “concrete, personal witnesses,” even if that means paying the ultimate price. 

“Bearing witness to the truth and beauty of the Gospel remains the mission of Christians today. The secret of this mission lies in a convincing Christian life and in sharing what has been experienced in faith. In the presence of the ecclesiastical assistants from the charity “Aid to the Church in Need”, it is particularly fitting to recall that the most credible witnesses to the faith and the most convincing interpreters of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are the martyrs – that is, those Christians who have laid down their lives for their faith in Jesus Christ,” Cardinal Koch explained, highlighting that recalling that “the Christian faith is the most persecuted religion today.” 

Vatican City, 9 September 2026. Pope’s Meeting with ecclesiastical assistants from national offices of ACN 

“This harrowing reality not only presents a major challenge to showing compassionate solidarity with persecuted Christians, but also opens up the possibility that the Church’s mission can be carried out today in ecumenical fellowship. For today, all Christian churches and ecclesial communities have their martyrs,” and “the blood that the martyrs shed for Christ today does not divide us Christians, but unites us.”

In any case, Cardinal Koch explained, it should not be fear that guides the Church’s efforts, but joy. “Proclaiming the joy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is therefore the Church’s most important mission today. Joy is the innermost driving force of the Church’s mission.”

“Passing on the faith and mission are therefore not merely a duty, but the very dynamic of the experienced faith itself. Today, this takes place above all through personal witness to the faith, as it were, through ‘word of mouth’. It does not take place today so much through consumer-friendly advertising or the distribution of large quantities of printed material, nor is it carried out through the media. Rather, the decisive medium through which God’s radiance shines forth is the Christians themselves, who live out their faith credibly and thus give the Gospel a personal face.”

“Passing on the faith and mission require baptised people whose hearts are filled with God and whose minds are enlightened by the light of God, so that their hearts may touch the hearts of others and their minds may speak to the minds of other people. Then what the Second Vatican Council passionately emphasised can become a reality: that the Church is “missionary by its very nature” and that its purpose is to evangelise – including through the work carried out by the papal foundation Aid to the Church in Need.”

Vatican City, 9 September 2026. During Pope’s Meeting with ecclesiastical assistants from national offices of ACN and Cardinal Kurt Koch highlighted the “ecumenism of the martyrs”.

Busy schedule and meeting with Pope Leo

The meeting of ecclesiastical assistants of the national offices of ACN took place in Rome from 7 to 11 September and included a private audience with Pope Leo XIV. 

Over 20 assistants travelled to the eternal city and gathered to exchange experiences, pray together and meet with high dignitaries in different departments of the Roman Curia, including Cardinal Koovakad, president of the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue; the president of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, Cardinal Tagle, and the sostituto of the Secretary of State, Archbishop Paolo Rudelli.

The ecclesiastical assistants returned home greatly enriched by the meeting and with a clearer understanding of their role and mission within ACN and of the importance of their office. The personal exchanges, common prayer and various presentations and reflections were especially valuable and greatly appreciated by all participants.

The meeting was also an opportunity for the ecclesiastical assistants to get to know Fr. Friedrich Bechina, who will be taking on the role of assistant to the International Office of ACN, in Konigstein, Germany. 

Fr Bechina will be replacing Fr Anton Lässer, who serve in the role for over three years, but will now be stepping down. 

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Holy Family School in the old city of Gaza re-opened this morning for approximately 1,000 students, serving the local Holy Family Catholic Parish, but also the wider community with the majority of the students being Muslim.

Fr Gabriel Romanelli, said he hoped the re-opening of the school after almost three years of war since the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, will be “like a light in the darkness for the local community that has experienced so much suffering.”

Fr Romanelli told a delegation from the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), that was visiting the Holy Land to assess the needs of the local Church and hear first-hand about their situation, that “the needs in Gaza are enormous.”

“For the students and the families, re-opening the school will bring some sense of normality. We have worked hard to ensure that it is a safe environment. There is almost nowhere in Gaza that has not been destroyed, destruction is all around – but we have worked hard to make the school a clean environment, where the children – who have been through so much – can feel safe,” Fr Romanelli told the visiting ACN delegation.

Before the war, five Christian schools operated in Gaza: three Catholic, one Orthodox and one Evangelical. Christian pupils were spread among these schools. Now, for the first time, all Christian students will attend the same school, Holy Family School.

Gaza, Latin Patriarchate School and Kindergarten. End of Year Ceremony (Year of Hope). 2025-2026 Academic Year. © LPJ.ORG

George Akroush, Director of the Project Development Office of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, told ACN that around 130 Christian pupils will study at Holy Family School, making up approximately 13 percent of the student body.

“For the first time, all Christian students in Gaza will be studying together in one Christian school,” Akroush said. “This creates a strong sense of community and shows that the Church remains close to them, accompanying them in the midst of all they are going through.”

The school is re-opening after many of those internally displaced by the war have returned to their homes. Up to now, more than 450 people had been living in the school seeking shelter from the Israeli bombardment that followed the Hamas attacks.

Fr Romanelli said that the parish is committed to ensuring that the people can feel some sense of normality, “even though nothing is normal in Gaza”. Every Sunday, he said, after the parish Mass, he brings parishioners to the beach in Gaza City “even though the water in the beach is filled with rubble – everywhere in Gaza is filled with rubble – we want to have some time of recreation for the families.”

The war has changed everything in Gaza, Fr Romanelli told the delegation, and people remain deeply affected. “It is important also for the teachers that the school re-opens,” he said. “Many of the teachers are so traumatised, and it is almost as if they are not the same people who we knew before the start of the war.”

Gaza, Latin Patriarchate School and Kindergarten. End of Year Ceremony (Year of Hope). 2025-2026 Academic Year. © LPJ.ORG

Fr Romanelli said that special attention has been given to designing the school programme to take account of what everyone has been through. “In the past, for example, we never had psycho-social support on the school programme – now that will be an important part of what we do with the children and the teachers,” he said.

“Everyone in Gaza is carrying so much trauma,” he explained. Holy Family School will also serve as a vital base for post-school activities, with Fr Romanelli saying the children were asking him: “Please keep the school open after-school, Father, we have nothing to do and nowhere to go.”

“For me the school is a light in the darkness, it means a lot to people – when they see the 1,000 students coming in their uniforms to the school it shows them that there is a future,” he said.

Aid to the Church in Need, which has a special charism to serve the suffering and persecuted Church, has been providing financial and other support for the Holy Land, including Gaza, for many years.

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From communities in the Bolivian Amazon to parishes in Sudan, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone, preparations are already under way for this year’s “One Million Children Praying the Rosary” campaign.

One of the new features of the 2026 initiative is that it is being organised as a week of prayer, from 1 to 7 October. This will allow dioceses, parishes, schools, communities and families in different parts of the world to choose the day that best fits their pastoral and local circumstances, while remaining united around the same intentions of peace and unity.

The week will open on 1 October with a prayer vigil in Rome and will culminate on Wednesday, 7 October, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

This year’s campaign is inspired by the message of Fatima: “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph.” In the invitation to take part in the initiative, Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International and Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, recalls that the Immaculate Heart of Mary represents a life entirely open to the Holy Spirit and points to Mary as a model of faith, love and prayer. 

The invitation also places the campaign against the background of a world marked by conflict and suffering, recalling Christ’s words in the Gospel of John: “In the world you will have trouble. But take courage; I have overcome the world.” It speaks of the realities experienced today in so many countries: violence, war, poverty and real tribulation, but also the extraordinary consolation that can arise through prayer.

One Million Children Praying the Rosary 2025

The responses already reaching ACN show what this worldwide chain of prayer can look like in very different parts of the world.

In Sudan, where war continues to inflict enormous suffering on the population, Fr Franck Mandozi, from the Pastoral Region of Kosti, has confirmed that children from different parishes and schools will take part: “Indeed, Sudan and many parts of the world are in need of the intercession of Our Lady for peace in the world. With this in mind, we shall encourage children in our different parishes and schools” to participate in the campaign, he wrote to ACN.

Thousands of kilometres away, in a T’siman indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon, Sister Patricia Alejandra Botello López says that the Rosary is already being prayed with children in both T’siman and Spanish.

“We have already been praying it in both T’siman and Spanish since before 13 May because of the dramatic situation we have been experiencing in Bolivia for months, but now we will strengthen this prayer so that we can unite spiritually with you”, she told ACN.

“We have already been doing this in Tsimané and Spanish since before 13 May, due to the dramatic situation we have been experiencing in Bolivia for several months. But now we will strengthen these efforts in order to unite ourselves spiritually with you.”

In Zimbabwe, St Christopher’s Parish in the Archdiocese of Bulawayo will gather children on Sunday, 4 October. But for parish priest Fr Charles Mafurutu, the initiative will not end there. In the weeks that follow, he hopes to travel to remote communities and Mass centres scattered across the parish, some many kilometres away, to bring together children and pray the Rosary with them for peace.

In Paraguay, Radio Pa’i Puku plans not only to promote the campaign over the airwaves, as it has done for several years, but also to broadcast live the Rosary prayed by children at the parish of San Eugenio de Mazenod and to invite families, parishes, schools and catechists to join in.

Similar messages have reached ACN from Ethiopia, Mozambique and Sierra Leone, among other countries. They come from places with very different realities, but share the same conviction: at a time when the needs facing so many people are immense, prayer is not something secondary, but necessary.

The campaign is inspired by the words attributed to Saint Padre Pio: “When one million children pray the Rosary, the world will change.” It began in Venezuela in 2005 and has since developed into a worldwide prayer movement involving families, parishes, schools and children’s groups on every continent.

The campaign invites adults not only to encourage children to pray, but to pray with them. As the invitation letter emphasises, whether children pray alone or together, whether they pray the whole Rosary or only one mystery, every prayer has value. The Rosary, it says, leads children with Mary into the life of Jesus, while their prayer has a particular strength because it is simple, trusting and open to the grace of God.

ACN provides prayer materials to help children, families, schools and parishes take part in the campaign. Participants are invited to register their prayer so that, once again, the map can gradually show children from different countries joining one another in prayer for peace.

This year, World Rosary Day joins the campaign for the first time, alongside long-standing partners the Shrine of Fatima, the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network and the World Apostolate of Fatima.

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“In some places along the Bhote Koshi River, entire villages have been wiped out. Many houses along the river were swept away. So far, 624 people have been confirmed dead and 2,400 are still missing,” Father Silas Bogati, Apostolic Administrator of the Apostolic Vicariate of Nepal, told the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Initial investigations point to a sudden release of water in a glacial area of Tibet, possibly caused by the outburst of a glacial lake, although the exact causes are still being investigated.

Father Bogati confirms Rasuwa, on Nepal’s border with Tibet, as the worst-affected area and explains that “an important trade route with Tibet runs through this region, and Syabrubesi is also located there, one of the main departure points for tourists travelling towards the Langtang Valley”.

“All these hotels and settlements were swept away. There has been a high death toll in this area, and the river continued downstream, wreaking havoc across five districts. The flood has caused enormous devastation, as a huge mass of water surged downstream, destroying everything in its path. Some communities are still cut off, and search and rescue operations are proving difficult,” the Apostolic Administrator of Nepal told ACN.

Nepal’s Catholic community is very small compared with the country’s overall population. According to the Apostolic Administrator, “the Catholic Church has 13 parishes and 10,000 Catholics, but it has always worked for the Nepali population irrespective of their religion, and we will continue to do so as they suffer in this hour of need.”

As for the small Catholic community, Father Bogati said in his interview with the charity that “members of one of the Catholic communities go down to Syabrubesi to work. Some of them may have been swept away by the waters. We do not have any figures yet. Regarding buildings, no Catholic churches or chapels have been destroyed.”

The Church has already begun providing emergency assistance and assessing needs in the affected areas. Caritas Nepal has set up community kitchens and dispatched food to provide meals for 300 affected families for 15 days. In areas that remain inaccessible, assistance will be expanded through local partners. With further rainfall forecast and many people still sleeping outdoors, tarpaulins, blankets and sleeping mats are also among the priorities.

In a country where Catholics are few and geographically very isolated, Father Bogati also stresses the importance of feeling that Nepal’s small Church is not alone: “The Holy Father, Pope Leo, was the first to pray and to show his sympathy and closeness to the victims of these flash floods. In the same way, we are receiving prayers and support from the Catholic Church around the world,” he explains.

For Father Bogati, however, the Church’s mission is not limited to material assistance: “By being there, providing relief now and, later, contributing to reconstruction, we give hope. Our presence among those who are suffering will give them hope,” he says.

The apostolic administrator is making a special appeal for prayers for the victims and all those affected by the disaster, and expresses his gratitude for the closeness and solidarity of ACN and its benefactors with Nepal’s small Catholic community.

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