Where God Weeps - the suffering church in focus

ACN at Christmas : Tidings of comfort - for the world

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Haiti : A tabernacle and statue recovered from a damaged church

ACN has unveiled the original contents of the its Christmas baskets, destined for the pearl of the Antilles and Pakistan among others.

By John Pontifex and Mario Bard, ACN UK and Canada

First of all, in Haiti, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), via its United Kingdom office, is distributing 18 Christmas baskets containing rather original items, within the dioceses decimated by an earthquake last January, 2010.  Solar panels for parishes, repairs to a school which will serve future seminarians in Cap-Haïtien – a new roof for St-Joseph’s in Port-de-Paix and Mass intentions were given to priests in the capital city of Port-au-Prince and also in Jérémie, Jacmel, Les Gonaïves and Fort-Liberté.

View the country profile of Haiti.

Breaking News from Haiti

• 25/02/2011: Haiti: „The fact that I survived the earthquake shows me that God still needs me“
• 12/01/2011: Haïti: New hope, despite the many problems.
• 22/12/2010: ACN at Christmas : Tidings of comfort - for the world

The largest sum of €81,000 is destined to support 270 students in the priesthood who need help urgently.  Their seminary was completely destroyed by the earthquake, forcing them to study under tents.

Another amount of €50,000 went to repair a religious convent for the Order of the Little Sisters of Saint Teresa, which is a temporary residence for over 50 religious sisters after the congregation lost most of its houses in Port-au-Prince.

The suffering Church in Pakistan will receive support from ACN which will be directed to five different projects.  An amount of €25,000 will be allocated to a shelter for young boys in the diocese of Hyderabad – a province of Sindh – and to a multifunctional center in Yohannabad, situated outside the city of Lahore.

At the Christ the King Seminary in Karachi, where more than 40 students are studying Theology, the last stage before their preparation for the priesthood – an amount was allocated to stocking the shelves of their library, and new air conditioners which is of vital importance in this hot region where electricity is rationed.

In Iraq, where ACN recently announced they would be dispatching aid packages for Christians fleeing persecution – an amount of €20,000 will be sent to seminarians in the Syrian Catholic archdiocese of Mosul, a city where the anti-Christian violence over the last months has been at its worst.  Similar aid was sent to a seminary in Grodno, Belarus, a country which is now experiencing an upsurge in political tension.

Other dioceses around the world have also benefitted from ACN support this month through Mass intentions; a way of directly supporting priests who otherwise would not be able to survive without working and abandoning their essential mission as pastors in:  Kenya, Tanzania, Peru, Argentina and Nicaragua – Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic.  And in China, where support for religious formation is a priority for the Catholic Church in the ‘Middle Empire’, funding was also granted.