Projects in Need
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, ...
Support for 21 Sisters and One Brother in Moldova
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The Republic of Moldova became independent in 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is bordered by Romania on the west and Ukraine to the east, north, and south, and is among the poorest countries in Europe. Different sources put the population at anywhere between 2.5 and four million people. One reason for this discrepancy is that a significant portion of the adult population no longer live permanently in the country, and instead travel abroad to earn a ...
A Vehicle for a Parish in Ecuador
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The Parish of San José de Cuatro Esquinas, or Saint Joseph of the Four Corners, is in the Diocese of Guaranda in Ecuador. It lies at an altitude of well over 10,000 feet, some five miles from the provincial capital of Guaranda. It includes over 50 villages and hamlets in an area of mountains, steep hillsides, rocky outcrops, and high plateaus. It is populated almost entirely by indigenous people, who live primarily by farming and livestock rearing. Life here is ...
An Intensive Outreach Program for an Archdiocese in Bangladesh
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The Archdiocese of Dhaka in Bangladesh serves a population of just 85,000 Catholics. As in all the country, Catholics make up only a tiny minority, less than one percent. Over 90 percent of the country’s population is Muslim, and most of the Christians belong to ethnic minorities, who are already on the margins of society. The faithful turn to the Church in all their needs. One problem is that the people in many regions have very little formal education. The ...
Mass Stipends for 50 Priests in Sierra Leone
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The small nation of Sierra Leone in West Africa has seen a great deal of suffering in the past 35 years. A bloody civil war, lasting from 1991 to 2002, has left deep scars that are still evident today. Thousands were killed; children were forcibly recruited as child soldiers; untold numbers of women and girls were subject to rape and sexual violence; and over 2 million people forced to flee their homes. At the same time, vast swaths of the ...