The Voice of the suffering in Asia

With the support of the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the international exhibition “The Shroud of Turin” opened its doors in the capital of Kazakhstan, marking a milestone in interreligious dialogue in Central Asia.  An exact replica of one of the most venerated objects in Christianity, the Shroud of Turin, is being displayed for the first time in Kazakhstan. The official inauguration of the international exhibition “The Shroud of Turin” took place on August 1 at ...

A report compiled by Franciscan Fr. Lazar Aslam describes the plight of young girls and women who are subjected to rape, kidnapping, and forced marriage in a country where the law rarely affords Christians equal rights.   Samiya was only 17 when she set off on February 14 of this year to her job as a cleaner in a building in Lahore, Pakistan. At the end of the day, when she didn’t answer her phone, her mother went looking and found ...

An Indonesian priest recalls how Pope Francis’s visit to his country, where Christians are a small but vibrant minority, illustrates his legacy as a Pope of simplicity, close to the peripheries of the Church.   Pope Francis’s visit to Asia and Oceania in September 2024 remains a symbol of his concern with the peripheries and with Christian communities, however small they might be. At the time, Francis visited East Timor and Papua New Guinea, which are mostly Christian, but also Indonesia, ...

A 22-year-old Christian man, Waqas Masih, was brutally attacked by his supervisor, Zohaib, at the Subhan Paper Mills factory in Sheikhupura, Punjab. The incident, which took place on March 22nd, highlights the persistent religious intolerance present in much of Pakistani society.  According to reports from the victim’s family, received by the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the attack was allegedly related to Waqas’s refusal to convert to Islam after being coerced by Zohaib. It is ...

March 15th will mark the tenth anniversary of the death of Akash Bashir, a 20-year-old Catholic who sacrificed his life to save hundreds of people by intercepting a suicide bomber trying to access the church of Saint John in Youhanabad, in the Diocese of Lahore in Pakistan.  That act led to his being raised to the status of Servant of God – the first in the history of Pakistan – a first step on the path to beatification, generating much ...

Statement by Regina Lynch, ACN International Executive President  It is with profound sadness that we received the tragic news of the brutal murder of Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win, a 44-year-old priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of Mandalay, in central Myanmar. His lifeless body, mutilated and bearing numerous stab wounds, was found by members of his community on Friday morning on the grounds of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, where he served.   The terrible act of violence, committed on ...