Father Luka Jomo, the parish priest in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State in Sudan, was killed during an attack on the city by paramilitary militias. The city has been under siege since April 2023, and he is believed to be the first Catholic priest killed in the conflict. “Dear fathers, sisters, and all the faithful. It is with great sorrow that I write to inform you of Father Luka Jomo’s passing to the Father’s House this morning ...

The UK’s leading member of Parliament has released a book of poetry drawing on Mass readings and pledged to give half the proceeds to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).   Sir Edward Leigh, the “Father of the House” – so named as the longest-serving member of the House of Commons in the UK Parliament – conceived of “Another Country” at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown five years ago.  The book of verse takes the reader through ...

The Patriarch of the Maronite Church, Cardinal Bechara Raï, is calling for measures so that Christians will not abandon the Middle East, because they are a decisive moderating factor among the region’s Muslim-majority countries.   “Many have had to abandon Syria, because nobody can live in a war, under bombardment,” the cardinal told pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). “This migration is reducing the number of Christians, who, in the Middle East, have contributed to the formation of ...

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 ...

Fr. Alphonsus Afina was kidnapped on Sunday, June 1, in the Diocese of Maiduguri.   The auxiliary bishop of Maiduguri, Nigeria has called for urgent prayers for one of his priests, who was kidnapped by jihadist terrorists.   In a message sent to Aid to the Church in Need International (ACN), Bishop John Bagna Bakeni said that Fr. Alphonsus Afina was taken, along with other people, by suspected militants of Boko Haram–Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) on Sunday, June 1.  Fr. ...

Amid very difficult conditions in Syria at the moment – and fear about the future – Archbishop Jacques Mourad believes that lifting sanctions will bring new hope.   The situation in Syria continues to be one of severe poverty and uncertainty, says the Syriac-Catholic Archbishop of Homs, and many Christian families are still trying to leave the country.   According to Archbishop Jacques Mourad, the recent replacement of the regime of Bashar al-Assad by one with fundamentalist Muslim roots has bred suspicion among ...