Projects in Need
Renovation of a Coptic Catholic Seminary in Egypt
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In Maadi, a suburb of Cairo, 28 young men are currently training for the priesthood at Egypt’s one and only Coptic Catholic seminary. They come from different parts of the country. Abba Romany Fawzy, the rector of the seminary explains, “The mission of the seminary is to keep alive the flame of faith in the Church through the formation of generations of good priests. Our aim is to make sure that these priests are men of piety and prayer and ...
Help for the Training of Seminarians in Mexico
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There are over 120 “Redemptoris Mater” priestly seminaries around the world. They were established by Pope Saint John Paul II to promote the new evangelization. And today, young men from many different countries and nationalities pursue their vocation to the priesthood in these seminaries. The particular feature of the seminaries is that the priests who emerge from them are ready and willing to go anywhere in the world as missionaries, at the request of their own bishops. One of these ...
Supporting the Life and Ministry of Four Monks in Iraq
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Karamles, or Karamlesh, was an ancient city and is now a small town, 18 miles southeast of Mosul in the Nineveh Plains region of northern Iraq. It is a mainly Christian town, with the majority belonging to the Chaldean Catholic Church. In August 2014, Karamles was overtaken by fighters of the so-called Islamic State (IS), and almost all its inhabitants were forced to flee. When Pope Francis visited Iraq in March of 2021, he celebrated Holy Mass in Erbil, where ...
A Car for a Diocese in the Central African Republic
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Since June of 2024, Italian Carmelite Father Aurelio Gazzera has been coadjutor bishop in the Diocese of Bangassou, a particularly difficult region in the southeast Central African Republic. This vast area of 52,123 miles is almost half the size of Italy, and large parts of it still lie in the hands of rebel forces who regularly launch attacks. Moreover, it is inaccessible and covered in rainforest, bordering on the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan – both crisis ...
Mass Stipends for 34 Priests in Lebanon
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The Archdiocese of Baalbek-Deir El-Ahmar covers the Bekaa Valley region in eastern Lebanon, an impoverished part of the country that, for years now, has been sliding ever deeper into crisis. Ever since the start of the war in neighboring Syria, its proximity to the border has made the situation there increasingly unstable. Those who are able to do so are leaving the country for a better life in places like Canada or Australia. Others are going to Beirut, the capital. ...
A New Vehicle for a Remote and Far-Flung Parish
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Zimbabwe is a landlocked nation in southeast Africa with a population of 17.6 million. The majority of the population is Christian, though three quarters of the people belong to various Protestant denominations. Catholics represent only about 16 percent of the population. Zimbabwe has long been plagued by a severe economic crisis, made worse in recent years by devastating droughts. The Catholic Church in the country urgently needs help, since it lacks the basic resources to minister adequately to the Catholic ...
Support Seminarians in Chad
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Chad is a landlocked country in Central Northern Africa, in the Sahel region on the southern edge of the Sahara. It has an area of over half a million square miles and a population of just over 16 million, making it thinly populated, relatively speaking. The majority of the population is Muslim. The apostolic vicariate of Mongo is in southern Chad and serves an area of approximately 211,000 square miles, almost the size of France. But there are only about ...
A Village Chapel on an Island in Indonesia
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Indonesia is truly an island nation, with over 17,000 separate islands, around 6,000 of which are inhabited. Geographically, most of them belong to Asia, while some are included in the Australian continent. With a population of over 272 million, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world. However, the religious makeup of the country varies from place to place, with the island of Flores, for example, having a Catholic majority. The parish of Beteng Jawa is on the ...
A Vehicle for a Parish in Guatemala
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Father Luis Francisco Morales Reyes is in charge of the parish of Siquinalá Escuintla, in southern Guatemala. It has a population of more than 26,000 people, about 60 percent of whom are Catholic. The rest of the people mostly belong to fundamentalist or Pentecostalist sects. In order to minister to the faithful, Father Morales has to travel distances of up to 22 miles to reach the outlying communities. And the roads are extremely poor. Since his parish lies at the foot ...
Support for Contemplative Religious in Colombia
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The order of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary was founded in Spain in the 15th century. Today, its work is focused mainly in Latin America, while most of its convents in Europe are found in Spain. But there are also other foundations, in India and Africa. The Conceptionists, as the sisters of the order are known, live a contemplative lifestyle of silence and prayer. Their convent in Ipiales, in southwest Colombia, was founded in 1970. Two years prior, ...