The Voice of the suffering in Middle East

As war rages on in the Gaza Strip, Christians in the West Bank and Jerusalem find themselves in an increasingly desperate situation. Reinhard Backes, the Middle East Project Consultant for international pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), reports on a trip to the Holy Land in July 2024, during which he and an ACN delegation met the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, and many other local Christians.  ACN is standing with people in the Holy ...

His Beatitude Ibrahim Sidrak, the Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria, heads the small Coptic Catholic Church, which has about 300,000 members. In an interview with the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), he shared his thoughts about his country, which has become a refuge for many Christians.   How do you explain that, unlike in many other Near East countries, we have not seen a mass migration of Christians from Egypt?  Historically, we have a large Christian community ...

A decrease in the influence of Islamist extremism in Egypt has made it possible for Christians to rebuild damaged churches and even consider building new ones.   The Egyptian government has lifted restrictions on the construction of churches, allowing the Coptic Catholic community to begin restoring St. George’s Cathedral in Luxor – destroyed by a fire in 2016 – and make plans to build more places of worship in the country, according to Coptic Catholic Patriarch Ibrahim Sidrak of Alexandria.   Patriarch ...

Many feared that the invasion of the Nineveh Plains would drive Christians from Iraq for good, but ten years after militants of the Islamic state drove them from their homeland, thousands of Christians have returned to houses rebuilt with the help of ACN, taking with them their love for the Church and the hope of the Gospel.  “Words cannot describe what we experienced 10 years ago. ISIS tried to eradicate us, but they failed,” said Nizar Semaan, the Syriac Catholic ...

The Maronite Archbishop of Tyre, Monsignor Charbel Abdallah, whose archdiocese is one of the oldest in the world, told ACN that despite “finding ourselves in a state of war,” most people who had fled to Beirut or further north have now returned because they were short of money, and their relatives did not have the capacity to accommodate so many people. In the ten parishes near the Israeli border, which make up almost the entirety of the archdiocese, 70 percent ...

Archbishop Warda said that many Christians have either left or are planning to leave the country because of the ongoing economic hardship, and that young people “ask for jobs, not just to receive donations.” He explained that, even though persecution is no longer their main concern, “the pressure of being a minority is real.”