"Persecuted and Forgotten?" - ACN Report on Christians oppressed for their faith 2007/2008

Please click on the front cover of the book to read the report.

To obtain a hard copy of the report please write to our office at Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 (02) 9679-1929 OR order your copy on our On-Line store under the Other Books and Items category . The Report is available for a donation of $4.00

ACN offers help to Haiti

"We are on our knees. Only thanks to the solidarity of people like you can we begin to find the strength to get up on our feet again." - Bishop Gontrand Decoste SJ of Jérémie

Parishioners rescue the tabernacle, a statue of Our Lady and sound equipment from their ruined church

ACN has responded by offering aid to provide food, medicine, clothing and shoes for the 200 or more seminarians who survived the quake. The aid package, decided on Tuesday, 19th January, follows an earlier aid payment of $(US)70,000 for general emergency relief work. More help from ACN is expected soon. ACN has channelled its assistance through the Apostolic Nuncio to Haiti, Archbishop Bernardito Auza. who is bringing in aid from Santo Domingo, the capital of neighbouring Dominican Republic.

In a sign that ACN’s Haiti aid relief is unprecedented in scale, project chiefs have again signalled that the charity is poised to give more emergency and long-term help. It comes as the charity reports that it has received a series of distressing accounts of the suffering from priests, sisters, bishops and lay alike.

Bishop Langlois of Fort-Liberté, wrote: "We live through this catastrophe clinging to faith and hope. Our prayers do not stop us turning to God who can help us overcome our sufferings through solidarity and communion with others." Amid reports of widespread damage, especially in Port-au-Prince, Archbishop Auza, sent an update to ACN reporting an "endless list" of death and destruction. Describing how "all our beautiful churches are wiped out", he wrote that seminarians from the Montfordian religious order were trapped and killed in Port-au-Prince when their minibus was crushed by debris falling from the nearby CIFOR training and religious centre. He also reported that the provincial of the Daughters of Mary religious sisters had been killed and a number of sisters seriously injured. Stressing his total reliance on the aid he had organised to be sent from the Dominican Republic, the nuncio added: "I have nowhere else to buy bread. I cannot multiply my sack of rice."      

To help this cause please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148.

Web: www.aidtochurch.org    Donations can be made via our ONLINE DONATIONS tab.  More stories on the Earthquake in Haiti can be found on our NEWS & FEATURES page

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Help for the training of 47 seminarians
in the philosophy year of the major seminary of St. Mbaga Tuzine in Murhesa

An ordination ceremony

 "The Congolese people have finally had enough of weeping and dying", said the vicar general of the diocese of Bukavu, Mgr. Pierre Bulambo last December, after a priest and two religious sisters had been murdered in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. For too long now the Great Lakes region has been scourged by violence. The ceasefire agreed in 2008 remains extremely fragile; armed conflicts continue to erupt again and again and the civilian population are subject to violence, expulsion, rape. The Catholic priests and religious are standing side by side with the suffering population and for them too Golgotha is a fact of everyday life. Not a few of them have already paid with their lives for their fidelity.
  And yet this has not stopped young men from coming forward to follow the call of God. In the philosophy year at the major seminary of St Mbaga Tuzinde, in Murhesa, there are currently no fewer than 47 seminarians preparing for ordination. The seminary first opened in 1982 and today young candidates from six dioceses now study for the priesthood here, so that they can one day serve at the altar and minister to their fellow men. In the course of its history the seminary has been repeatedly plundered and wilfully damaged. At the same time, the Church here is as poor as her people. And although the seminary does its best to cover at least some of its own costs, for example providing food for the seminarians and seminary staff by farming and livestock rearing, prices are nonetheless soaring and the world economic crisis is biting deep. And so the seminary bursar, Father Ferdinand Bizimana, has once again turned to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), confident of help for the training of these future priests.
  One of the seminarians, Marc, tells us about his vocation. Even as a child he always wanted to become a priest. His father was killed in the civil war and his mother was left a widow, with 11 children. But now this young man wishes to commit his own life to the service of reconciliation and somehow finally break through the vicious circle of hatred and revenge. He writes, "The Year for Priests, that was proclaimed for the entire Church, and the special synod for Africa have strengthened me in my resolution to serve the people of God, here in my diocese that has been so tormented by hatred and division, by proclaiming the Good News of love and mercy for the benefit of the people in our region."
  Levi, another seminarian, comes from a family of 12 children. His older brother is already a priest and one of his sisters has become a religious in the congregation of the Daughters of the Resurrection. His parents are overjoyed that three of their children have chosen to give their lives for the Lord. He tells how he has "blossomed" here in the seminary and how happy he is that there is such great harmony among the seminarians, despite their different origins (for the seminarians come from a variety of different regions and tribes). In his letter he writes, "I thank especially all the benefactors of ACN for having remembered me on my path. May they all be assured that I will not disappoint their generosity. May Heaven grant that they live a happy and blessed life here on earth and that at the end of their lives our loving God may grant them eternal happiness".
  ACN will assist the seminary with a grant of of over $26,000, so that these 47 future priests may be able to follow their vocation and continue their studies.  To help this cause please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

Click here for past weeks' featured projects

 

---

2008 World Youth Day - A great Festival of Faith! Thank you to all our benefactors who helped support over 1,000 poor and oppressed youth attend World Youth Day. They came from Sudan, Laos, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Cuba, Haiti, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and from the remote indigenuous community of Wadeye in the far Northern Territory. Through your most generous support and prayers they were able to partake in this faith filled event. We pray that the witness of Pope Benedict XVI with these young people be a cry of hope for the universal Church. Click on the individual countries below for detailed information on the help ACN gave youth delegations that travelled to Sydney for WYD 2008 Wadeye (Northern Territory) - Papua New Guinea - Sudan - Laos - East Timor - Turkey - Turkmenistan - Bosnia-Herzegovina - Cuba - Haiti --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please click links below to read pictorial reports on the assistance given by Aid to the Church in Need, to help youth delegations from poor and oppressed countries, attend WYD 2008. - Annex WYD 1 (PDF) - Annex WYD 2 (PDF)

Reports for you to read about the work of Aid to the Church in Need