“The new day to commemorate the victims of religious violence is an important step to ensuring that more attention is paid to persecuted Christians in the future,” explained Dr Thomas Heine-Geldern. The executive president of the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) is pleased that for the [...]
A parish secretary has been murdered by an unknown assailant in her office at St. Cecile’s Catholic Church, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Mrs. Faustine Brou on Saturday evening, 10 August, was attacked in her office by a man who inflicted multiple knife wounds upon her, in an act of unspeakable [...]
A delegation of the International Pontifical Foundation, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) will be meeting with the Holy Father Pope Francis on Thursday, August 15th 2019 in a gesture to pray for peace in solidarity with the Syrian people, console families who mourn the loss of their dearest [...]
Various media reports suggest that the ongoing crisis in Central African Republic (CAR) is caused by a Muslim-Christian conflict or even Islamist efforts to subdue Christians. That is not the case, said one of the country’s prominent Catholic leaders. The ongoing bloodshed, said Bishop Nestor Nongo-Aziagba of Bossangoa, president of [...]
WHAT REMAINS OF CHRISTIANITY IN IRAQ FIVE YEARS AFTER THE ISIS INVASION? On August 6, 2014, IS units razed and conquered the Christian settlements of the Nineveh Plain, north of Mosul. Some 120,000 Christians had to flee overnight. Many of them found refuge around the Kurdish city of Erbil. For [...]
The Catholic Church in Pakistan is important for the country, says Reinhard Backes. He recently visited Pakistan for the fourth time as permanent section leader of the Pontifical Foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), in order to inform himself about the situation of the Christians and the projects [...]
Fr. Frans van der Lugt was killed in Homs five years ago. Since then, every day, Christians and Muslims have visited the garden of the Jesuit residence to pray at his tomb. Fr. Frans – in Arabic Abuna Francis – was a Jesuit priest originally from the Netherlands. He died in Homs, [...]
MARTYRDOM Msgr. George Frendo O.P. DEFINITION OF MARTYRDOM Thomas Aquinas developed a very interesting theological viewpoint on martyrdom in his Summa Theologiae[1]. He considers martyrdom as “the shedding of one’s blood for Christ’s sake”[2] and “the right endurance of sufferings unjustly inflicted”[3]. These affirmations imply that these unjust sufferings are [...]
Pope Francis is “profoundly concerned” for the humanitarian situation in Syria. The Pope stressed this in a letter that was hand-delivered to Syrian President, Basher Hazef Al-Assad, on July 22, by Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Cardinal Turkson was in Damascus [...]
A Fulani herdsman and a Jukun Kona farmer at Yawai Abbare in Jalingo Local Government of Taraba State, Nigeria were said to be at the root of the conflict which started on the 6th of May, 2019 and lasted for more than a month, degenerating so badly that at the [...]
