Less than a week after the beginning of his papal ministry, Pope Leo XIV met with representatives of Eastern Catholic Churches and expressed gratitude for Christians who, in the face of war and disastrous conditions, persevere in the lands of their birth. “I thank God for those Christians – Eastern and Latin alike – who, above all in the Middle East, persevere and remain in their homelands, resisting the temptation to abandon them,” Pope Leo said during the papal audience ...

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 ...

Through practical support and respect for their dignity, the Church in Nouakchott is showing the face of Christ to migrants. In a context where the Gospel can essentially only be proclaimed through action, the Church in Mauritania, supported by ACN, reawakens the hope of those who thought they were forgotten.   “Originally, I was ashamed of going to the Accueil-Écoute center to receive food because I was afraid that people would refuse me and treat me as a beggar. Finally, I ...

Pope Leo XIV could have lived a comfortable life as an American growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, and even as an Augustinian priest, but he chose to go to the missions, according to a priest who lived and worked with him for many years. “And that was not an easy thing to do. You leave your parents, your family, and you put yourself at the service of others,” said Augustinian Father Arthur Purcaro, who worked in Peru with ...

The international Catholic charity supported projects in the dioceses run by then-Bishop Prevost in Peru and, more recently, continued to cooperate with him in his capacity as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.   The executive president of pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Regina Lynch, expresses her gratitude for the election of the new Pope, and warmly recalls the fruitful collaboration between the organization and Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV.   ACN supported ...

Königstein im Taunus, Germany, 8 May 2025 It was with the greatest joy and gratitude that international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) received news of the election of Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost to the Papacy, under the name Leo XIV. The new Pope is no stranger to ACN and to its work: during his mandate as bishop of Chiclayo in Peru from 2015 to 2023, ACN could support him with manifold projects, mostly in the formation ...