The Voice of the suffering in Latin America

The Church of the Assumption was vandalized and set on fire in 2020.  Some stories do have happy endings. On November 8, 2019, during a wave of street protests, several hooded people looted the 143-year-old Church of the Assumption, one of the oldest in Santiago de Chile. The looters made off with artwork and holy images and used confessionals and pews to build barricades in the streets.  One year later, on October 18, 2020, an arson attack completely destroyed the ...

The Sisters of Charity of Cardinal Sancha occupy a special place in the hearts of many Cubans, who know they can count on the “Sanchinas” when they need help. The congregation was founded on the island in 1869 to help the disabled and poor children. Over time, they extended their reach to cover education, support for families and the elderly, vocational schools, and pastoral work in parishes. Sanchina Sisters Isabel and Leonida carry out this work in Camagüey, the third-largest ...

The close collaboration between Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) and now-Pope Leo XIV blazed a trail of service and evangelization in Peru. From the Andes to the Amazon, ACN’s projects carry hope and a pastoral presence to where it is most needed.   In this interview, Peruvian Luis Vildoso, who is responsible for ACN’s projects in Latin America, speaks about the fruits of this work and the current challenges that the Church in Peru faces.   ACN worked closely ...

Pope Leo XIV is a bishop who is “going to hear the cry of the suffering Church,” predicts a fellow Augustinian missionary who lived and worked with the future pontiff in Peru for 10 years. As a missionary in Peru, facing threats in a difficult time in the country, the future pope stood by and spoke up for Christians whose freedom and basic rights were violated, said the priest. Father John J. Lydon, OSA, has known Robert F. Prevost since ...

Spanish priest Father Alfonso Delgado, who arrived in Venezuela in the 1970s with a group of fellow missionaries, gradually found himself alone as the years passed and his companions passed away. However, he found a home among the Sisters of the Missionary Work of Jesus and Mary, a congregation that he had helped establish in Carora, in western Venezuela, over 50 years ago.  “A few months ago, when I was struck down by cancer, I did not know where to ...

Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) deeply mourns the tragic loss of two religious sisters from the Congregation of the Little Sisters of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, who were brutally murdered on Monday, March 31st, by armed gangs in Mirebalais, about 31 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.  Sisters Evanette Onezaire and Jeanne Voltaire were in the city on a mission when they found themselves needing to take refuge with other civilians from an attack ...