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With 272 million people, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world. But its religious make-up varies from place to place. The island of Flores, for example, is mainly Catholic.   The parish of Copang in western Flores was established in 2017 and today has a population of over 7,800 Catholic faithful that grows annually. This is a very lively parish; Holy Mass is well-attended; and the people genuinely strive to live their faith every day.  The parish has ...

Sudowa Wyschnja is a small town in West Ukraine. Its Latin Catholic parish and two sub-parishes are very lively and run by the Franciscans. There are about 350 parishioners, with many young families and different parish groups. The members of the Franciscan Third Order, or lay Franciscans, lovingly care for their church and help to make sure that the liturgy is celebrated well. There is a “living Rosary” group that prays the Rosary daily, and another group involved in social ...

The monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe is in the city of Belén in Costa Rica, and it also serves as a formation house for the order of the Franciscan Friars Conventual in Central America. There are currently six brothers there, four postulants and two of them fully professed. But the monastery has space for 16. Its superior, Father Andrés Quesada Soto, has written to us: “We are hoping that the vocations apostolate will bear fruit in the coming years ...

Venezuela is regularly affected by tropical storms and other natural disasters, and the country was particularly hard hit by the passage of Hurricane Julia in October 2022, which caused extensive damage. Tens of people died, and countless houses were destroyed. In the parish of Tarmas in northern Venezuela, the rainfall was so heavy that the ground could no longer absorb it, leading to devastating landslides. There are 14,500 people here; many families lost their homes. Fortunately, the parish’s beautiful 200-year-old ...

The Parish of the Immaculate Conception in northeast India lies close to the border with Bangladesh. It includes 31 villages and serves a population of about 5,000 Catholics, most of them relatively young. But the parish is large in area, and many of the villages are fairly inaccessible. The priests sometimes have to walk up to five miles just to reach the faithful.  One such village is Twicholong. There have been Catholics here since 1969 – at first, just a ...

The apostolic prelature of Corocoro lies high in the Andes, in one of the poorest parts of Bolivia, where 80 percent of the population live in extreme poverty. Clean drinking water and adequate nutrition are by no means guaranteed, and neither is medical care. Most people live in small, remote villages that are difficult to access, with roads that are dangerous and often impassable in the rainy season. The Missionary Sisters of Jesus the Eternal Priest are a congregation founded ...

Sierra Leone has suffered a painful history in recent times. Between 1991 and 2002, half the population were uprooted and forced to flee as the result of a bloody civil war which left thousands of people murdered. To this day the consequences of that conflict are still evident. Poverty, unemployment and corruption mark daily life in this West African nation, which is now among the poorest in the world. The situation was further exacerbated by natural disasters–notably the Ebola epidemic ...

The Handmaids of Mary are a women‘s congregation indigenous to India that was founded in 1944 to care for those on the margins of society. They have always given special care to women and children of the disadvantaged ethnic minorities and the dalits (the former “untouchables”) on the bottom rung of society. Today the Sisters are active in 18 different Indian dioceses. In the Diocese of Roukela, they have a house in Telendih. The people here are mainly from ethnic ...

The Order of the Discalced Carmelites in the Central African Republic is blessed with many new vocations. Their mission was founded in 1971 by 4 Italian Carmelite Friars, and today, there are 15 fully professed Central African brothers and another 32 young men in various stages of their formation. There are also 7 Italian Carmelite Fathers working permanently in the country.  Many people in the Central African Republic live in deep poverty. The country is effectively a failed state, plagued ...

The Diocese of Kisumu serves exceptionally poor areas of Kenya. Hunger, illiteracy and lack of medical provisions, combined with desperately poor roads and a lack of clean drinking water, make life difficult for many people in these areas. Having electricity is no more than a dream for most of the local population. Additional suffering is inflicted by certain traditional tribal practices, such as girls being married off at the age of 12, while widows are frequently made to marry the ...