The Voice of the suffering in Middle East

Lebanon is still recovering from years of conflict and economic turmoil. The Pope’s visit is a sign that the local Church is not forgotten and highlights the country’s unique role in the region. Pope Leo XIV began his first foreign apostolic journey today, November 27, touching down in the capital of Turkey, with plans to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. While Leo’s visits to the key sites of Iznik (Nicaea) and Istanbul highlight ecumenical and ...

With unemployment disproportionately affecting the Christian community, and as a gesture during the Jubilee of Hope, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem (LPJ) decided to cancel student debt in all its schools. Even though Christians are the smallest of the three major faith groups present in the Holy Land, after Jews and Muslims, the Catholic Church runs the largest network of schools in the region. More crucially, though, Catholic schools are unique in the composition of their student bodies and in ...

The end of Christianity in Syria would be a great loss, because “the Church stands as a reminder to every one of the ethics of justice and human dignity as a supreme value,” says Archbishop Jacques Mourad.  The Church in Syria is “dying,” a Syriac Catholic bishop warned recently, during a presentation in Rome. Archbishop Jacques Mourad of Homs, Hama, and al-Nabek said the Church in Syria faces an unbearable and unsustainable political and legal situation, with Christians leaving the ...

For the first time since the war began, the faithful of Holy Family Parish in Gaza gathered on Sunday in silence — no bombs, no sirens, only prayer. Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, an Argentine-born missionary and parish priest of the Holy Family Church, called on his faithful to “forgive all those who have failed and ask forgiveness for our own shortcomings,” as he led a Mass filled with hope and thanksgiving. “The long-awaited day has come to begin the implementation of ...

While indirect talks are taking place in Egypt between Israeli envoys and Hamas, the hope for a beginning of peace is cautiously laying roots in the Holy Land. The parish priest of the Catholic parish in Gaza spoke to Aid to Church in Need (ACN) about the heavy toll from two years of war.  “Two years of war: it seems unbelievable,” Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, pastor of Holy Family parish, the only Catholic parish in Gaza City, told Aid to the ...

In the midst of a new wave of fighting, the Argentine priest describes hours of anguish in Aleppo, Syria. His parish has once again become a refuge for dozens of families.  With the sound of loud explosions and heavy weapons in the background, Fr. Hugo Alaniz, who has been a missionary in Aleppo for over a decade, tells Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) about one of the most difficult days that the city’s Christian community has experienced in ...