After centuries of prohibition, the small Catholic community of Estonia is rising from the ashes. On September 26th, 2024, Pope Francis erected the first diocese in the country. On November 1st of the same year, during an address to the Catholic Church of Estonia to mark the centenary of the creation of its first apostolic administration, Pope Francis congratulated it for being an “example of faith,” despite “decades of suffering, occupation, and oppression”, and stated that “this admirable legacy of ...

For many years, ACN has provided support, especially through scholarships, to members of the Assumption Sisters of Eldoret. Using the skills obtained through this aid, the sisters have been helping girls on the street in Nairobi.  In Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, there are over 60,000 street families, including thousands of boys and girls who do not go to school and are often addicted to drugs or involved in other illegal activities, Sister Caroline Ngatia tells ACN, during a visit ...

Translated into approximately 200 languages, ACN’s Child’s Bible is the only book that some children own in their native language. Now, with the help of ACN, Father Stefaan Lecleir, a missionary priest in South Sudan, is having the Child’s Bible translated in Pazande, the language spoken by the Azande people in parts of South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  “About 95 percent of the people in my parish are illiterate,” explains Father Stefaan ...

Goma, the capital of the province of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is in imminent danger of being taken over by the M23 rebels who seized the airport and parts of the city.   As fighting reportedly continues in Goma, the Church fears for the well-being of the innocent civilian population.  Willy Ngumbi Ngengele, the Bishop of Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has issued a warning about the city’s drastic situation, as ...

The situation for Christians in Syria varies from city to city, according to local sources, and Christians have greeted with cautious optimism the transitional government’s guarantees to respect religious freedom.  Christian leaders in Syria have expressed their willingness to work with the provisional government, following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, to build a new country based on equal rights.   According to local sources contacted by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Christians are committed to playing a ...

With 54 years of service in a rural parish in the Diocese of Guaranda in Ecuador, Salesian Father Antonio Polo has changed the region through pastoral and spiritual labor – but also, with the help of the local population, through business ventures such as the development of Salinerito Cheese. When Father Antonio Polo arrived in Salinas, Ecuador from his native Italy, over five decades ago, he was not only struck by the beauty of the landscape, but also by the difficult ...