ACN Annual Report 2015

Aid to the Church in Need

BEING GOD’S MERCY ANNUAL REPORT 2015

BEING GOD’S MERCY

Aid to the Church in Need

BEING GOD’S MERCY ANNUAL REPORT 2015 CONTENTS PAGE Being God’s Mercy.................................................... J F Declan Quinn...............................1 ACN Annual Report 2015....................................... Johannes Freiherr Heereman...........2 Overview of 2015 Projects...................................... Regina Lynch.....................................6 Eastern Europe I........................................................ Magda Kaczmarek......................... 10 Eastern Europe II....................................................... Peter Humeniuk.............................. 16 Eastern Europe III...................................................... Peter Rettig..................................... 20 Latin America I............................................................ Marco Mencaglia............................ 24 Latin America II........................................................... Ulrich Kny........................................ 30 Africa I........................................................................... Christine du Coudray Wiehe......... 38 Africa II.......................................................................... Toni W. Zender................................ 44 Africa III......................................................................... Rafael D’Aqui.................................. 48 Asia Africa.................................................................... Fr Andrzej Halemba........................ 54 Asia I.............................................................................. Irene Eschmann.............................. 60 Asia II............................................................................. Véronique Vogel.............................. 66 Western Europe/Refugees...................................... Peter Humeniuk.............................. 72 Scholarships Section................................................ Peter Rettig..................................... 74 Mass Stipends............................................................ Fr Andrzej Halemba........................ 78 Communications Department................................ Mark von Riedemann..................... 84

Editor: Jürgen Liminski. Publisher: Kirche in Not / Ostpriesterhilfe, Postfach 1209, 61452 Königstein, Germany.

De licentia competentis auctoritatis ecclesiasticae. Printed in Ireland - ISSN 0252-2535. www.acn-intl.org

Aid to the Church in Need

YEAR OF MERCY

BEING GOD’S MERCY Dear Friends, his web version of our Annual Report provides the reader with some of the background insight and analysis which was undertaken during 2015 by ACN’s Project Department. As ever in presenting this report I do so with great pride in the professionalism of my colleagues all of whom bring their faith and their individuality to the Charity’s work.

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Notable in all their individual reports is the tone: quiet, positive, appreciative, respectful and faith-filled. Now lest you think my colleagues are only writing this way because they know that what they have written will eventually be published I can assure you otherwise.

My Project Department colleagues have written in the way that they have because that is the way they are. Here the simple truth is that ACN’s Project Department staff are wonderful faith-filled ambassadors who with great Joy and invincible Hope act as conduits of God’s Mercy to people in greatest need of God’s Mercy.

As such ACN’s Project Managers are its front-line troops, the ones who directly deal with our beneficiaries, the majority of whom serve the Church heroically in some of the toughest conditions and during the toughest of times.

One can get a sense of this if one reads deeply enough and should one do so, one will get the distinct sense that very often it is the case that the projects which ACN fund are being championed by humble folk who are in fact ‘living saints’: ordinary folk who for the love of God are undertaking extraordinary works of Mercy for their brothers and sisters in need.

For my own part it is my great privilege to serve ACN’s Irish benefactors who prayerfully join with us in the Church’s great mission of Mercy to our broken and warring world.

Thank you for your generous support, the world needs it and God will reward you for it.

Your brother in Christ,

J F Declan Quinn Director, Aid to the Church in Need (Ire)

YEAR OF MERCY

8th December 2015 - 20th November 2016

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BEING GOD’S MERCY

ACN ANNUAL REPORT 2015 Johannes Freiherr Heereman

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nce again, what we classify so prosaically in our bookkeeping as our ‘Income’ has risen again considerably. Yet behind this rather emotionless word is concealed something of incalculable worth – your generosity. It seems to know no bounds. 124 million Euros – more than ever before – is the amount you entrusted to us last year, so that we could come to the help of the Church in need all over the world. Thank you for your generosity, thank you for your confidence in us.

We are under no illusions. We know that it is not because of any clever fundraising on our part, but because of the bitter plight of our brothers and sisters in the faith, particularly in the Middle East, that drives us all, in this Year of Mercy, to bear witness to our love of Christ.

For as Pope Francis says, ‘to be an apostle of Mercy, means tending His wounds, which are still visible today in the bodies and souls of so many of his brothers and sisters. By tending these wounds, we profess Jesus and make him present and living.’

This same witness will be needed again this year. We will continue to help wherever Christians suffer, so that children can have a roof over their heads, so that priests and religious sisters can continue their pastoral ministry and so that Christians in China, Syria, Iraq, Africa and all over the world can know and feel the solidarity of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Their suffering calls to us, their plight cries out to heaven – and the love of Christ unites us, wherever in the world your generosity is reaching out.

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2015 REPORT INCOME Individual donations Mass Offerings Legacies Sales and tax relief Other donations/income Subtotal Net financial income Total income

€

%

EXPENSES

€

82,053,469 10,800,007 26,640,602 3,813,209 427,891

66.1 % 8.7 % 21.5 % 3.1 % 0.3 %

Expenses in fulfilment of the Church’s mission - Projects in 146 countries 94,829,344 76.4 % - Project follow-up 2,595,848 2.1 % - Information, media and pastoral support 15,226,747 12.3 %

123,735,178 99.7 %

Total mission related exp 112,651,939 90.8 % 12,141,946 8,099,035

%

389,301

0.3 %

Fundraising Administration

9.8 % 6.5 %

124,124,479

100 %

Total expenses

20,240,981 16.3 %

Taken from reserves

-8,768,439 -

7.1 %

These international financial statements have been audited and certified by KPMG. They are based on the individual financial statements of each national office, and aggregated to show the worldwide position. We will gladly supply these on request.

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Aid to the Church in Need

YEAR OF MERCY

AID ALLOCATED PER REGION:

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n 2015 the plight of Christians in the Middle East was the focus of media attention – and likewise of our aid. The cost of the emergency aid we supplied, along with the structural projects, has more than doubled and now accounts for one fifth (21.6%) of our total budget – exceeded only by the continent of Africa, at 29.3%.

Our aid for Syria increased threefold. In fact, in all regions there was a substantial increase in the aid we supplied: from Eastern Europe (up by 1.5 million), through Africa (up 7.8 million) to the Middle East (up by 11.5 million). As in the previous year, the largest number of project requests came from Africa, with a total of 2,093 projects supported. This was followed by Eastern Europe and by Asia/Oceania.

2.0%

1.2%

0.7%

0.6%

The majority of the Mass Offerings likewise went to Africa and Asia. Latin America remains a vital, youthful continent, from which many new Catholic communities are emerging, but the sects and the ravages of drug addiction are a constant menace. There is a great need to invest in catechesis here.

The 10 countries that received most aid

1 Iraq 2 India 3 Ukraine 4 Syria 5 D.R. Congo 6 Brazil 7 Ethiopia 8 Tanzania 9 Peru 10 Lebanon

2015 10,699,379 6,865,067 6,252,613 5,618,278 3,349,377 2,673,268 2,362,922 2,129,581 1,856,248 1,720,609

2014 4,664,145 4,949,670 5,124,211 1,942,451 2,874,460 2,445,697 1,202,149 1,226,537 1,173,599 1,015,127

29.3% Africa 21.6% Middle East

13.5% 29.3%

16.5% Central and Eastern Europe 14.6% Asia 13.5% Latin America

14.6%

2.0% Western Europe 16.5%

21.6%

1.2% North America 0.7% International 0.6% Oceania

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WHERE YOU HELPED

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URING 2015 WE SUPPORTED 6,209 PROJECTS, or 13% (almost 600) more than in the previous year.

Unfortunately though, we still had to say ‘no’ to 1,110 requests for help...

REFUGEES AND EMERGENCY AID: This type of aid has increased dramatically, on account of the continuing persecution of Christian minorities, especially in the Middle East, and also owing to the violence in central Africa, Nigeria and South Sudan. Since the beginning of the so-called ‘Arab spring’ we have sent 44.6 million Euros to these regions.

4% 3%

TRAINING OF PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS: The support you gave for both basic and ongoing formation of religious sisters, novices, seminarians and priests came to a total of 8.32 million Euros.

37% Construction

7%

37%

9%

18% Refugee and emergency aid 12% Mass Offerings

10%

12% 18%

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CONSTRUCTION AID: The ‘classical’ construction and renovation projects, such as churches, convents, parish houses and seminaries once again made up the largest ‘chunk’ of our aid in 2015 totalling of 34.5 million Euros.

10% Religious formation of the laity

Aid to the Church in Need

9% Formation of priests and religious 7% Pastoral transport 4% Religious literature, media apostolate 3% Support for religious sisters

ANNUAL REPORT 2015

1,431,380 MASS OFFERINGS hrough stipends we were able to help one priest in every nine T (43,203 priests altogether), especially in Africa and Asia – and in return Holy Mass was celebrated every 22 seconds for a benefactor’s intentions.

11,075 SEMINARIANS SUPPORTED DURING 2015 One seminarian in every 10 worldwide (in 2014 it was one in every 12). Most of them are training for the priesthood in Africa (3,775), Latin America (2,900) and Eastern Europe (2,883).

10,240 RELIGIOUS SISTERS WERE SUPPORTED IN THEIR APOSTOLATE AND /OR THEIR FORMATION One sister in every 67 worldwide. In most cases this involved financial support for contemplative religious sisters.

1,674 CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS round the world we helped to fund chapels, churches, A cathedrals and seminaries, including those in regions devastated by natural disasters.

524 CARS / 714 MOTORCYCLES AND BICYCLES / 17 BOATS ost of the vehicles you helped provide were for use in Africa and M Asia. The requests for help with various forms of pastoral transport increased sharply, accounting for almost 10% of the projects.

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OVERVIEW OF 2015 PROJECTS Regina Lynch, Director of Project Department First the good news…

…then the less good.

ooking back at the past year, we can rejoice in the good news that we received from the Church in different parts of the world: the testimonies of young men preparing for the ordination to the priesthood, the smiling faces of the devoted catechists, who finally have a bicycle to make their visits to the villages less arduous, the prayers and thanks from the contemplative sisters, who now have the equipment they need to make candles that will be some source of income, the children in Syria, who received new winter shoes before the onset of bad weather.

ut we also hear from the bishops, priests and sisters on the ground of another type of growth: religious fundamentalism especially in regions, where Islam is present. In some countries this does not surprise us – we are unfortunately used to hearing about the anti-Christian attacks in Pakistan, Syria or Iraq – but what is more recent, is the increasingly aggressive form of Islam in countries where there used to be a type of peaceful co-existence or tolerance between Christians and Muslims, e.g. in the Sahel countries of Africa or the Balkans.

And then there are the countries, in particular in Africa, where there was never a strong presence of Islam but where it is making new inroads via social projects and scholarships for young people, e.g. Angola, Dem. Rep. Congo, Malawi.

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And from the statistics just released by the Vatican for the nine years between 2005 and 2014, we learn of an increase in the number of Catholics worldwide from 1,115 million to 1,272 million or 17.8 per cent of the total population. In Africa in particular there has been a strong growth (41 per cent) that exceeds the population growth (23.8 per cent). In fact in all continents with the exception of Oceania, the number of Catholics has been growing faster than the overall population.

In some parts of the world – Africa and Asia – the number of priests and seminarians are also increasing.

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But the Catholic Church is also confronted with other fundamentalists or extremists, e.g. the Hindu fanatics in India, who thanks to their political power now use legal and subtle means against minorities including Christians.

Or the communist regime in China, which in it efforts to control the population, still continues to imprison or put under house-arrest Catholics, who do not conform. And we also cannot ignore the evangelical sects especially in Latin America, whose efforts are leading to a decline in the presence of the Catholic Church in countries such as Brazil.

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A strong presence and faith

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he bishops from the regions, where the Church is persecuted or suffering because of these different forms of fundamentalism, turn to us for help to strengthen the presence of the Church and also to build up the faith of their people. Sometimes, this can be something as concrete as replacing the small mud hut with a new chapel or for example, rebuilding those churches in the Diocese of Maiduguri in Northern Nigeria burned down by Boko Haram.

It could be providing houses for priests and sisters, who want to be present among their faithful. Very often in a time of crisis, they are the first to whom the people turn. But the priests and sisters need to meet their daily needs and so we provide the priests with Mass stipends and the sisters with existence help. Contemplative sisters carry the local Church in their prayer but they also need somewhere to live and to have some source of income. We provide that support.

Displaced family living in Aleppo, Syria.

The bishops stress the need to help the people know and grow in their faith, if they are to withstand the physical and psychological attacks of fundamentalist groups and so they ask us for support for training catechists or for programmes for teaching the basic tenets of faith. And for this they need bibles or other religious books, radio or tv programmes, maybe even a centre for holding classes.

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But the bishops, priests and sisters also need support if they are to remain strong in their faith. So many work long hours, often under very difficult circumstances or in great isolation. How can the teaching staff of a seminary, for example, show the seminarians the importance of leading a spiritual life, if they do not have the means or encouragement to do this themselves?

And so we provide funding for retreats, for recollections, for ongoing formation.

Hard facts he help that we were able to provide to the suffering and persecuted Church in 2015 surpassed all previous years. We could do none of this without the generosity of our benefactors, who are our only source of help for the thousands of bishops, priests and religious, who turn to us each year. The annual reports of our

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colleagues in the Project Department are a chance to show the benefactors how effective and necessary their support has been.

But first of all some facts.

In 2015 we were able to fund projects for almost €95 million, a record for our Foundation. Of this total amount: 29.3 % went to projects in Africa, 21.6 % to the Middle East, 16.6 % to Central and Eastern Europe, 15.2 % to Asia, 13.5 % to Latin America, 3.1 % to the Western World and 0.8% to International projects that cover

several regions or continents.

We received over 8,000 applications – another record! – and managed to fund 6,209 projects. Some 1,110 had to be refused mainly due to a of lack of funds and the remainder were carried over to 2016, as

Construction of a village chapel at Chokmohon, Raiganj Dioscese, India.

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ANNUAL REPORT 2015

We supported 1,705 projects for all sorts of constructions: chapels, convents, priests’ houses, seminaries, pastoral centres and managed to lighten the burden of 1255 priests, sisters and catechists by providing them with some form of transport including donkeys and boats.

Donkey and cart provided to catechists of the parish of Faladje, Mali.

we still were missing the details necessary for reaching a decision.

Happily we were able to respond to the increase in the number of seminarians in the Church by supporting the formation of 1,406 seminarians more than in the previous year. The strongest increase was in Africa.

In total we supported 11,075 seminarians worldwide or one in ten seminarians. In Africa one in two seminaries received our help, thereby keeping pace with the growth in the Church there.

We received and distributed 1,431,380 Mass intentions meaning that every 22 seconds a Mass is being celebrated somewhere in the world for the benefactors of ACN. We were also able to contribute to the livelihood of 3124 active sisters and 1404 contemplative sisters on the different continents.

These are just a few examples of the wide range of projects that were funded in the course of the past year. In 2016 many challenges await us – sadly, many remain the same, because religious fundamentalism and political instability in many parts of the world does not show any signs of abating.

But 69 years of existence as an organization has shown us that trust in Divine Providence and the intercession of our Divine Mother, that even the seemingly impossible can be made possible. •

Financial assistance towards the formation major seminarians Sokoto, Nigeria.

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EASTERN EUROPE I Magda Kaczmarek

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wo countries were the particular focus of our mission in 2015 – Ukraine and Bosnia.

Ukraine ‘The Maidan was a catechesis for everyone’. So said the former Nuncio in Ukraine, Archbishop Gullickson. There is a new awareness, and the pastoral support of the people is now more necessary than ever.

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he massive flood of refugees and migrants into Europe has to a large extent overshadowed the events in eastern Ukraine. Mgr Gudzyak, the president of the Ukrainian Catholic University

Agricultural Equipment for the novitiate of the Basilian in Krekhiv, Ukraine.

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in Lviv, writes the following on the second anniversary of the deaths of the 100 people killed on the Maidan: ‘In the revolution of human dignity, one of those who died was 28-year-old Bohdan, a member of our faculty. He wanted to demonstrate his yearning for peace, press freedom, justice in the legal system and equality for all before the law and to make clear that the corruption in the healthcare system must also disappear. That is what he gave his life for on the Maidan.’

The Redemptorist provincial pointed to a phenomenon that has become evident since the war in the Donbass region, namely people‘s openness to God and to the Church and their voluntary commitment. One young woman involved in the youth festival organised by the Redemptorists wrote a personal testimony in which she said, ‘You young people are a generation who are fighting for life with peace in your hearts. Take courage and trust in God! HE is with you. You are not alone.’

And life goes on in Ukraine. The Hrywna has devalued by almost a third over the year. Living costs are enormously high. The average wage is around €80; an average pension around €40, a loaf of bread costs 50 cents and a litre of diesel 80 cents. Not infrequently, people‘s survival is something of a miracle. Nor is the Crimea, which now officially belongs to Russia, spared from this. Bishop Pyl of Simferopol informs us that he is constantly juggling with his money

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ANNUAL REPORT 2015

in order not to spend too much. ‘I would rather help my poor families than buy a nice piece of sausage, which might certainly taste good, but which is simply far too expensive.’

The parishes in Donetsk and Luhansk in East Ukraine are being continuously ministered to by priests of both rites. They help each other out. Most of the faithful there are in so-called mixed marriages. Father Mikolaj tells us, ‘We bring the Gospel to the people and preach pardon and love.

Politics is of no interest to us, and hence we are safe.’ Thanks to our emergency aid, the bishops have been able to provide help, here too, for those in need.

In February the Ukrainian bishops made their ad limina visits to Rome. Pope Francis appealed to the pastors of both rites to serve all the people, especially the suffering, to help to free them of prejudices and bring them to unity.

The Year of Consecrated Life has now come to an end. In September 2015, in Lviv, for the first time, a meeting of male and female religious of both rites was held, a meeting we co-funded. We were there too, and we sensed a great enthusiasm among the 600 people present. Talks, group work and the daily exchange between the two rites demonstrated just how important it was to talk about unity, about what is shared in common, but also about the differences. To preserve their own identity but yet together to serve the one Church, this is the great desire.

Afterwards we visited a number of communities of sisters of both rites and were able to personally see their needs and requirements. ‘The gas costs are so high, and we are simply “burning up” our money in the oven. We have to change over to wood as quickly as possible’, says Sister Natalia Melnyk, the chairwoman of the order of religious superiors of the Eastern rite. The female religious communities are endeavouring to support themselves in a whole range of different ways – through needlework, host baking, cake making, icon painting, manufacturing noodles, teas and herbal medicines.

And they do not even have enough time for this, since they have a great many catechetical classes to teach and are short of vocations. They live very frugally and often

Construction of a rectory for the parish of Apostles St. Peter and Paul in Petrushiv, Ukraine.

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struggle to survive. Our increased support, both for the formation of these religious and for the basic support of the sisters, is an enormous help to the Church.

Bishop Shyrokoradiuk of Kharkiv assures us that the children‘s and youth apostolate in the parishes simply could not function without the dedicated service of these sisters. He goes on to add: ‘Their devotion and the humble manner in which they serve the poor, the sick, the homeless and the families are testimony to the true light of the Church shining at its brightest – in the spirit of service towards those who most need this help and in their love for their fellow men’. A convent will always remain a place where everyone is welcomed, regardless of religion.

Whether those with deep psychological wounds, those plagued with depression and angst, or simply those facing difficult moments in their lives, every individual finds a sympathetic hearing and every person is helped.

We have invested a significant proportion of our donors’ money in the formation of seminarians, which is a matter of the highest priority for us. Among the many projects we supported, with the help of our benefactors, was the final phase of the renovation work on the inter-diocesan seminary in Ivano-Frankivsk, where 260 seminarians are currently training for the priesthood. In his letter of thanks to us, Archbishop Vijtyshyn wrote, ‘The seminary is the heart of every diocese, and we thank you for your solidarity.’

We were told how people often ask for religious items, not knowing what they are, but simply because ‘it helps’. In 2015 we were particularly concerned with supporting the regular and ongoing formation of the sisters, and likewise with the purchase of apartments or houses for them. Their apostolate in the hospitals, the children and old people‘s homes, like their involvement in pro-life activities, is a marvellous testimony to their faith and a contribution to the work of evangelisation.

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ANNUAL REPORT 2015

Our aid in 2015 was likewise concentrated on a number of smaller construction or renovation projects. Instead of having to pray in private houses and homes, and hidden away, since their churches and chapels have either been confiscated or not yet returned to them, the smaller parishes often need churches to allow people to practise their faith openly in the community.

These projects are proof of the fact that the Church is reading the signs of the times and helping all those who are seeking to find their roots and their way to God. It can be clearly seen that people are increasingly seeking out churches as places of silence and consolation and of personal encounter with the living God. In consultation with the bishops, and to the extent of our possibilities, we have provided our help to this end.

Bosnia: ‘The man of peace came to visit us all’. So ran one headline after the papal visit to Sarajevo. The motto of the visit was ‘Peace be with you’. ithout a doubt the papal visit on 6 June was the most important event during 2015 in the Catholic Church and within society in this small country.

Sister Lucija, the Superior of the Carmelite sisters in Sarajevo, was allowed to leave the confines of her contemplative convent together with her fellow sisters, and attend the papal Mass, with the permission of the cardinal. She comments, ‘Francis came to us as a father, caring for his children’.

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Where the Mass intentions offered by the faithful are not sufficient, we also help out with those of our benefactors. One priest from the eparchy of Kiev wrote to us to say, ‘Your international support is a visible sign of the presence of God and of your loving concern for us. It helps me to feel myself a part of the Universal Church, when I celebrate the Divine Liturgy for my fellow Christians in other countries. This feeling of not being alone is of the greatest importance, especially in the difficult times that Ukraine is now going through.’

That day was an exceptional one in Sarajevo – with crowds of rejoicing people everywhere on the streets, including many from neighbouring countries as well. The high point was the solemn pontifical Mass in the stadium and the meeting with the young people in the newly built John Paul II youth centre – we helped for the third phase of this in 2015. The youth centre is making progress. One young female staff member at the centre expressed her thanks to us. ‘Your help is a sign of mercy. May God reward you for the good you are doing by investing in young people, for that is the greatest investment in life.’

Installation of water supply system and sewage system in the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Family in Ternopil, Ukraine.

The Nuncio, Archbishop Pezzuto is also convinced that the Church should above all invest in young people and help them to strengthen their faith and their love for their

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homeland, so that they do not lose hope.

He calls on our benefactors to be ‘strong in helping’.

There were two important reasons for the papal visit: the 20th anniversary of the Dayton Accords, and the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War in Sarajevo in 1914. Today Bosnia is a caricature of a nation in which, putting it simply, everything is divided by three. The population consists of Bosnians, Serbs and Croats. The country is economically weak and has the highest unemployment rate in Europe (up to 60%). In many parishes within the ‘Republika Srpska’ Catholics wanting to repatriate continue to be hindered in their efforts to return to their country. Discussions with the politicians responsible hold little chance of success, since the goodwill is lacking.

In December we were able to take part with Cardinal Puljic in the first ever conference on the persecution of Christians to be held at the European Parliament in Brussels.

Cardinal Puljic emphasised that terrorism is being fostered within Bosnia. Europe was giving Bosnia up by standing by while the discrimination against Catholics was increasing, he said. They were becoming discouraged, he went on, and yet it was so important to create a sense of respect for the differences among the different ethnic groups. The president of the EU Parliament, Martin Shulz, acknowledged that in the past this issue had not been discussed. 2015 was a turning point in regard to the persecution of Christians, since religious freedom is the fundamental right of all people and 14

this conference was a contribution to raising awareness and a wake-up call for society.

So now we are hoping, together with our friends, for concrete action from Brussels.

The powerful influence of the Arab countries is evident in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During our journey there we were able to observe how much Turkish is spoken in the streets.

Land and properties are being sold up. The Catholic Church is fearful that Bosnia will lose its Christian identity, and an increasing sense of pessimism is spreading among many people. We are all called to build peace in this country. Without peace in Bosnia there will be no peace in the Balkans.

No less important was our interest in the other Balkan states, such as Kosovo, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro. At the end of September a conference was held in Pristina entitled ‘Piccolo Gregge’, in which ACN and other aid agencies conferred together about the future of the small minority churches in the Balkans and about the various ways of helping.

In Belarus we were able to continue supporting a number of already initiated construction projects and projects for the supply of motor vehicles, which are a necessary instrument for the pastoral outreach in the parishes of the Catholic diaspora in this country.

Pope Francis has proclaimed the Holy Year of Mercy. At this time of continuing conflict in eastern Ukraine, this year has a very special significance. For this reason the head of

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the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Shevchuk has stated in his pastoral letter: ‘There are three moments in the life of a person when he can experience God‘s mercy and be its herald. First, in the sacrament of penance and reconciliation, secondly, in sharing God‘s mercy with others – being merciful like the Father, in the family and in the parish, sharing mercy so that no one is forgotten, rejected or ignored; thirdly, in the loving solicitude of the Mother of God, the merciful Mother, who leads us like a Holy Door, to Christ.’

Thanks to the support of our benefactors we will once again able to help wherever the Gospel is proclaimed. For Archbishop Kondrusiewicz of Minsk, the Gospel is like a lifebuoy or a rope that we can cling to, and proclaiming the Gospel is the duty of every individual Christian, the Metropolitan concludes.

Bishop Sobilo, from eastern Ukraine, thanked us during our visit to his diocese in June for our solidarity with his Church. ‘You are our sure support; thanks to you we can get to our parishes, pay for the petrol, care for our churches. The cross on our Church is like an anchor, drawing those in need, and we can share with them what others entrust to us. Your selfless support is a sign of your love and your concern for us, and it motivates us to still greater prayer and deeds of charity.’

We are grateful for the personal contacts made during our project trips, and also for the fact that we were permitted to witness at first hand the communities in these countries. These experiences and the enrichment they have brought to our project work and our mission are like a treasure one no longer wishes to part with. All this and still more is possible only thanks to our faithful benefactors worldwide, who daily pray for our project friends.

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Pope Francis visitis theArchbishop’s Youth Ministry Centre John Paul II in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

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EASTERN EUROPE II Peter Humeniuk he high point of this annual report was the meeting, which can only be described as ‘historic’, between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia on 12 February 2016 in Havana. It is an event that was preceded by 25 years of hard effort, by ACN among others. During this meeting a joint declaration was signed and simultaneously published.

ing was made on Friday, 5th February. This too was a deliberate measure, since it left just four working days before the event.

Nonetheless, there was sufficient time to prepare for, and ultimately achieve, a worldwide media coverage that was appropriate to the occasion. These preparations were already in themselves the expression of considerable, and in recent years growing, mutual trust

The preparations for the meeting were kept consistently secret, the number of individuals in the know has been put at six people – Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, Cardinal Koch and Metropolitan Hilarion, plus one staff member on each side. The official and simultaneous announcement of the meet-

Indeed, never in the past has there been a meeting between a Pope and a Patriarch of Moscow. This was the heartfelt desire of Pope St John Paul II, the desire also of Pope Benedict XVI, a wish he expressed in his own reserved manner, and finally also the wish of Pope Francis, who expressed

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Meeting of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia, Havanna, Cuba.

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this clearly and plainly. Regardless of the different characters of the respective popes, it seems to me that for many years, at least as long as I have been able to observe it, the Holy See has pursued a consistently respectful policy with regard to Russia.

In recent years a comparable attitude has grown also within the Moscow patriarchate, so that a joint meeting was more a question of where and when, rather than whether.

that are relevant to our own internal and current strategy discussions with regard to the shape of our future collaboration with the Orthodox Church: 1.

The common witness of solidarity with the persecuted Christians in the Middle East (points 8-13). 2. The joint activities and programs for the promotion of the family in the broadest sense (points 19-23).

The atmosphere of the meeting was brotherly and in my opinion had the character of a beginning, on a long-term journey together. The 30 points of the declaration to some extent embrace the various global crises and set a certain tone. The scope of the different topics is indeed considerable, especially given the fact that the two men were speaking with one voice. The private part of the meeting, the personal conversation between them, may also be regarded as very significant. For all the joy at this historic occasion, the meeting also makes clear the critical and dangerous situation in the world, the danger of a global war, the genocide of the Christians in the Middle East and in North Africa, the threats to the family and traditional Christian values – not least in Europe. It would be disastrous, in such a context and at such time, not to be able to speak with one voice.

In our formal discussions with Metropolitan Hilarion a year ago we already more or less determined upon these themes; the joint declaration unequivocally confirms this direction.

The detailed discussions on this joint declaration have begun and will continue; it has raised questions and emotions. To go into it more deeply here would be beyond the scope of this report. Hence I would like to simply point here to two particular aspects

The back history to this began with the visit of a high-ranking delegation of ACN to Russia in April 2015. Under the leadership of Baron Heereman, Father Martin

The first meeting of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia.

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Barta and other members of the executive committee visited various different places in Russia. The journey was intended to give insights into the situation in Russia, to enable meetings with the bishops concerned, and to offer some insights into the commitment of ACN in Russia, both for the Catholic and for the Russian Orthodox Church, and likewise for the interfaith initiatives.

Stops along the way included, in Moscow, talks with Archbishop Paulo Pezzi and Metropolitan Hilarion, plus other meetings in Kemerovo and Novosibirsk, Bishop Werth and Metropolitan Aristarch, in Irkutsk and Chabarovsk meetings with Bishop Kirill Klimovicz, plus other meetings in Vladivostok.

This journey was documented with relevant press communiqués and publications.

One important outcome of this journey was the formation of a core working group including on the Catholic side in Russia, Mrs Giovanna Parravicini, the cultural

Members of the Catholic Delegation being presented to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia.

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attaché in the nunciature, Mrs Margarita Neljubova, a long-serving member of staff of the external affairs office of the Moscow patriarchate and leader of a synodal office for questions on the diaconate, and myself as the representative of ACN. This group may be extended as necessary, and may seek outside advice; its activities will in future be moderated by a body comprising Catholic and Orthodox bishops and the leadership of ACN. This body is as yet still in its infancy and at the present time its role can only be hinted at; here too strategic discussions and ultimately decisions still have to be made.

However, its intended direction is essentially the two areas already mentioned, namely solidarity with persecuted Christians, and the family. Nonetheless, pilot projects are already being devised and planned. With regard to the aspect of solidarity with the persecuted Christians in the Middle East, we have already been able to hold an exchange of information with our expert, Father Andrzej Halemba, at the beginning of February at the external affairs office of the Moscow patriarchate.

Working in collaboration with this already formed working group will make it necessary to be in Moscow more frequently. In addition to the areas already mentioned, it will be important to develop and evaluate the already existing contacts and initiatives. In the past 25 years ACN has worked successfully for dialogue between the two Churches. In the meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch, one can see a confirma-

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tion of the not-always easy and always much-discussed path already followed, and likewise an encouragement to continue on this path in an updated and modified manner.

The volume of work within the section has remained considerable. With regard to the priority countries, apart from Russia, the countries of Central Asia deserve special attention. In this connection we are planning a journey together with the director of the projects department, Regina Lynch, via Russia and Kazakhstan to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The aim of the journey is to better understand how we can help on the spot, and also to strengthen our contacts with the local bishops and communities.

In these countries Catholics are living as a minority in a mainly Muslim environment.

Wherever this is possible, good relations with the Orthodox Church – which is also a minority – are important. The Catholic Church has to adopt an appropriate stance not only with regard to the Muslim majority, but also with regard to authoritarian state structures; hence this is an area where a stance in shared communion and solidarity on the part of Christians can only be an advantage.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia.

In the other countries of the section we are striving to implement the approved strategic approaches. In this respect it might well be a good idea to involve the bishops, or respectively the episcopal conference, in Slovakia.

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EASTERN EUROPE III Peter Rettig s it has been for decades, migration – or rather, the brain drain – was once again the characteristic feature of the countries of my section during 2015. This migration, otherwise not so exceptionally noticeable to the citizens of the host countries, was finally reflected in 2015 in the daily news reports over the issue of the Albanian Roma peoples. Some individual benefactors asked us for contact addresses in Albania, so that they could help the deported Albanians, whom they had got to know as volunteer refugee helpers, to reintegrate.

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A few statistics from the World Bank will help to illustrate the problem that so severely impacts on our pastoral projects.

Anything from one sixth (Republic of Moldova) up to almost a half (Albania) of the working population are living and working abroad. The preferred destination of these people includes Italy, Germany, the United States and Spain. The low-cost fruit and vegetables that we eat arrive on our plates thanks to this migration. When you go to hospital, you need not be surprised to see a doctor or a nurse from one of the Balkan countries.

In all three countries the population has been steadily falling for many years now as a result of migration and a low birthrate.

In Romania the population has fallen by approximately 0.7% each year for the past 10 years (a total of 6% since 2005). Quite apart from the migration, the number of deaths in Romania far exceeds the number of births.

Passenger car for the parish in Lippa, Romania.

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What does this mean for us? We cannot allow a church to collapse, even if only a handful of old people attend Mass; a presbytery still needs heating, even if, in addition to the kindergarten and school children, the parish priest can only gather a handful of faithful around him. We will continue to see more such small and modest renovation projects.

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Other projects are assuming greater importance, for example motor vehicles for the priests, so that they can visit their scattered flock and bring them the sacraments; help to build convents for religious sisters, so that even without a priest a strong Catholic presence can be maintained; catechetical projects, so that children and young people can put down deep roots in their faith for the rest of their lives. The importance of promoting the vocations apostolate is also something that should not be underestimated. And where are the workers in this part of the vineyard to come from if ever fewer of them are being born? New ways will have to be found.

As we learnt during a conference with the bishops of Albania, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo, the question of migration brings with it a further challenge. The Catholic faithful left behind in the country are often unemployed, not in the best of health and dependent on the money remitted by their daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, uncles and nephews working in Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain, France or the United States, in order to be able to pay their bills.

Construction of choir of the Carmel convent in Nenshat, Albania.

These are some of the central issues: How is the local Church to support herself and her priests? How is she to pay for electricity, heating and water; how insure her workers in the vineyard, at least materially, against illness and accidents? How much do the local faithful actually contribute towards this at present, and how much could they contribute?

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Romania he Greek-Catholic cathedral in Cluj is now rapidly nearing completion.

The dome is now closed in and on 13 October 2015 the bishop blessed the cross standing on this dome.

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Another important event in 2015 was the consecration of the renovated monastery complex of Maria Radna. The magnificent opening liturgy, with numerous guests from Romania, Europe and all over the world, was an occasion to exercise patience, since the homilies were given in Romanian, Hungarian and German. Now it is down to the local Church to fill this place with life and spirit.

A constant challenge is the catechetical formation of the laity. In the year 2015, in order to provide especially young people with the opportunity of deepening their Christian roots, advancing their Christian identity and discovering their vocation as laypeople, priests or religious sisters, and in order to give them the inspiring experience of communion with like-minded people, we generously supported the Romanian national Youth Day in Cluj. Young people from all over the country came together – regardless of whether they spoke Hungarian or Romanian at home, and regardless of whether the liturgy in their home parish was celebrated in the Latin or Byzantine rite – to pray, to celebrate the Liturgy, make music, take joy in life and forge friendships with others. As is so often the case with such events, and inevitably to be expected, young women were clearly in the majority.

Republic of Moldova n this case we will not be looking back, but forward. We will shortly be receiving requests for the thermal insulation of Church properties. And if this project does not sound very pastoral, then we should remind ourselves that the running costs of these buildings represent a great burden on the shoulders of parish priests and religious superiors. The lighter this burden, the more time, energy and imagination they can devote to their pastoral and social work and the more they can be freed to follow the missionary call of Our Lord.

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Renovation of the convents in MariaRadna, Romania.

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Albania

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e are still waiting for the new episcopal appointments. Three of the six dioceses in the country need new and committed pastors.

A project we will be supporting during the coming years is the seminary in Shkoder.

Two years ago it was passed by the Jesuits into the hands of the local bishops. During their time there the Jesuits succeeded in finding the money for the running expenses by seeking help through their worldwide connections. For the bishops of a country that once stood at the centre of the ancient world, but which today is more likely to be known by outdoor enthusiasts, the running costs are now a constant cause of concern.

Thanks to our benefactors, we are able to support each seminarian with a fixed sum, so that we can ease the burden. With our help for new windows in 2015 the running energy costs are somewhat reduced. Nonetheless, there is still quite a bit to be done to establish the seminary on a sound footing.

Leaving aside the material questions, the spiritual dimension of the seminary is crucial. The building itself houses not only the seminary proper, but also the philosophical and theological institute, the school for catechists, and the library. Sisters from Africa, who are working as missionaries in Albania, are studying philosophy and theology here.

The local Church faces the challenge of creating a stable future for this beacon of the Catholic faith for Albania and the Albanians.

Another concern is one that we can do little to help with our money, though a great deal with our prayers. The number of priestly vocations is falling, and yet the parishes need priests on the spot.

The popular mission in the mountains is a cornerstone of the spiritual life, but how is one to ease the pastoral needs, how enable people to receive the Sacraments, when the village is sometimes cut off in winter and there is no local priest? How is one to help the internal migrants striving to begin a new life in the major conurbation of TiranaDurres, when there are not enough priests to do so? •

Replacement of the windows and doors of the seminar in Shkoder, Albania.

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LATIN AMERICA I Marco Mencaglia Where we have helped

How we helped

uring the year 2015 ACN supported the Church in need in the countries of this section in 150 ecclesial jurisdictions, and with over 500 projects approved.

he increasing generosity of our benefactors has enabled us to provide more support during 2015 for logistical aid (construction and vehicles), for formation (pastoral and religious), basic subsistence support, media projects and the supply and purchase of Bibles and religious publications.

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We continue our strong commitment to the Church in certain regions of Peru, a commitment strengthened by our visit to the country in April 2015. Equally a constant and urgent priority is our support for the Church in Haiti, the poorest country on the continent. Almost half the aid approved in our section during the past year was for the Church in need in these two countries.

The Church in the Andes region is the object of our special attention, also in Bolivia and in some of the most needy regions of Colombia. Our visits to the Churches of Central America in recent years have already borne significant fruits of communion through a broader outreach, in a good number of initiatives that ACN was able to support, especially in Nicaragua, thanks to the generosity of our benefactors.

Finishing of the chapel in the Monastery from Jesus, Maria and Joseph, Sonson-Rionegro, Colombia

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We have increased our commitment on behalf of religious formation. We supported 44 projects in support of seminaries, most of them in Peru (19), Colombia (6) and Bolivia (6). Likewise very significant and constant over the years has been our support for the national seminary in Haiti and for the seminaries in Nicaragua. This support for the Church in Latin America in the field of religious formation was also reflected in numerous projects for formation courses and for the ongoing formation of the diocesan clergy and the female religious institutes.

The grave economic and social situation in Venezuela has led us to consider giving greater support for books and other catechetical materials for adults, young people and children in a country where the critical lack of basic essentials makes it difficult to print publications or organise any kind of pastoral initiative.

In the most remote and inaccessible regions, in the Andean mountains, on the banks of the great rivers of the Amazon basin and in the

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poorest and most isolated regions of Haiti, we have been able to increase our aid for the purchase of suitable vehicles, so that priests, religious and laity can take the Word of the Gospel ‘to the ends of the earth’. We funded the purchase of 35 vehicles during 2015.

In particular, we were glad to be able to increase our support for electricity supplies to the parishes in Haiti, by means of generators and solar power systems. Over the past 12 months we approved 23 such projects in the country as a whole. The lack of electricity is a real problem in many parts of Haiti.

Without it, quite apart from the difficulties of everyday life that can easily be imagined, it is also very difficult to organise pastoral activities after nightfall, the only time many of the faithful can come together. Without electricity it is even very difficult to organise the celebration of Holy Mass, especially if we recall that in Haiti, when Mass is celebrated on feast days, many people have to stand far away from the altar, and even outside the church, given the lack of suitable churches and the great number of the Catholic faithful.

And that is assuming that the community is lucky enough to have its own church and is not forced to celebrate in rented buildings or, as frequently happens, in the open air.

Purchase of a car for the pastoral work in rural areas, Hermanas Lauritas, Peru.

The churches we visited Peru CN has been helping the Church in Peru for many years. In 2015 we supported over 100 projects in 35 of the 45 ecclesial jurisdictions of the country.

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Our visit in April focused on certain regions where our aid is a priority and where during 2015 we allocated over 40% of our aid for the country – the high plateau (altiplano) surrounding Lake Titicaca (prelatures of Juli and Ayaviri and the diocese of Puno), the region of the southern Sierra meridional (archdiocese of Cusco, prelature of Sicuani, diocese of Abancay) and the suburban sprawl around the major cities (Callao, Arequipa), where recent decades have witnessed a constant and rising internal migration from the poorest regions of the sierra and the Amazon rainforest.

Despite the recent economic growth in Peru, major social and economic differences remain between the central and peripheral areas – on the national level, within a single diocese and even within a single parish. There is an increase in the so-called ‘barrios de invasión’, or regions of recent influx, where people who have migrated recently in search of work from the poorer regions now live in makeshift shantytowns without any social services or help on the part of the state. In these numerous new barrios, the Church faces a constant challenge in trying to provide a pastoral out-

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reach to a rapidly growing population who, though traditionally nominally Catholic for centuries, have very little real knowledge of their own faith. Where the Church cannot provide a regular outreach, the numerous sects fill the vacuum with their own aggressive proselytism. Our support for the work of the priests and in the training of teams of lay catechists, and likewise for the construction of simple chapels where Mass can be celebrated with dignity in the midst of these places, is of crucial importance if the Word and the Face of God are to be made known to these large numbers of poor and abandoned people.

The region of the southern plateau (altiplano meridional) is one of the poorest in the country, inhabited to a large extent by the Quechua and Aymara indigenous peoples.

For 10 years now ACN has been helping the new bishops here to improve the local seminaries, some of which have almost no vocations. Given the lack of priests, many parishes here in the Sierra (each of which commonly has over 30 smaller outstations in isolated places) are without proper pastoral care, not to say abandoned. Yet even though there is much work still to be done, it is already possible, after 10 years now, to see the first fruits of a truly missionary outreach, albeit a highly challenging and occasionally dangerous one, on behalf of the members of the local Church.

Guatemala and El Salvador

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he second journey undertaken in 2015 had as its objective the Church in Guatemala and the projects for promoting reconciliation in El Salvador.

Unlike Peru, in the past the local churches in Central America have not been the priority targets of aid from ACN. Our visit gave us the opportunity to strengthen our ties with the local Church in perhaps the most important country in the region (with over 16 million inhabitants). The Church in Guatemala comprises 15 ecclesial jurisdictions, which reflect a great variety of social and cultural contexts – the Archdiocese of Guatemala, with an urban population of over 5 million souls and constantly growing; the region of the Sierra, with a population that is overwhelmingly indigenous, with numerous ethnic

Prayer after the Confirmation for the parish youth, Church Stanta Catarina in Ixtahuacan, Guatemala.

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groups (Quetzaltenango, Quiché, Sololá, San Marcos, Huehuetenango, Vera Paz); the coastal Pacific region, with the three young dioceses of Escuintla, Suchitepéquez and Santa Rosa; the eastern region (dioceses of Jalapa, Zacapa and Jutiapa – this last mentioned established only at the beginning of 2016) and finally, the tropical region in the direction of the Atlantic coast, which is still in a phase of missionary development (the vicariates of Izabal and El Petén).

Guatemala is a youthful Church in a number of different senses: it is common to attend Masses in which there is a high level of popular participation, above all of young people (70% of the population is aged 30 or under).

Moreover, in many parishes there are retreats and youth encounters, with lively involvement and great enthusiasm on the part of the laity. At the same time, priestly vocations are slowly growing, while the missionary priests from abroad are progressively being replaced by a new generation of young local priests (this is most evident outside the capital). In this delicate process of generational change, which is crucial for the future of the Church in Guatemala, it is of the greatest important to support these young clergy with a sound and solid formation and with the necessary material means to develop their pastoral ministry, which is frequently in areas of financial poverty.

The Church in Guatemala is also young in its structures. In 1947, the year ACN came into being, there were just three jurisdictions for the whole country, for 4 million inhabitants.

At that time the pastoral ministry existed

above all thanks to the work of missionaries. In the last 50 years the population has quadrupled, and the Church faces the constant and major challenge of providing pastoral care for an ever-growing people of God. In this context the traditional Catholic loyalty has been watered down by the Protestant sects, or turned agnostic. The statistics confirm that despite the growth in the overall number of people professing to be Catholics – due to the rapid population growth – the actual percentage of Catholics in Guatemala has fallen to less than 50%, and continues to fall.

The aid given by ACN for the country in recent years has been concentrated above all in the form of small subsidies for construction, principally churches and chapels (approximately 70% in 2015). After our visit

A priest blessing the aged man, El Salvador

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we can confirm that this type of aid, linked to support for initiatives for formation, corresponds to a real need in the local Church.

In many cases these chapels, in addition to being places of worship, also constitute centres of unity and community life. The people are very committed to the work of building their own chapels, providing the manual labour and as much financial aid as possible, despite their slender resources.

The construction of such centres also strengthens the sense of belonging to the Church and so acts as a counter and a brake on the aggressive action of the sects, not only in the towns but also in some of the smallest villages.

Whereas on the one hand the Catholic youth are active and engaged, at the same time millions of young people in Guatemala, just as in El Salvador and Honduras, are victims of a continuing, cruel and silent violence, such as one finds in no other part of the world.

Thousands of young people suffer from the daily warfare between the various criminal gangs, which, with their logic of death, have become deeply entrenched, particularly in the areas of recent urbanisation.

The absence of the family environment and of an educational system capable of reaching those on the margins of society has sadly created a situation in which many young people have no other option to protect themselves than to join a criminal gang.

By walking the path of peace, the Church is accepting the difficult mission of saving the young and the future generations from a perverse system of warfare, which gains 28

little notice in the international press but continues to kill the hopes of a considerable number of young people each year.

We completed our journey with a brief visit to El Salvador in order to reaffirm our solidarity with the local Church in her efforts to heal the wounds of the civil war. In the 1980s thousands of Catholic Christians, catechists, laity and priests were killed for their witness to their faith. In the year of the beatification of Archbishop Romero, ACN has renewed its commitment to healing the wounds of the civil war through its support for projects for preserving the memory of the martyrs, including the construction of places of prayer and publications on this theme – not in any sense of revenge, but in a spirit of sincere reconciliation.

Catechism and formation sessions, parish of Saint Gérard, Port au Prince, HaItí.

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Looking ahead to 2016

the best way of working together for the evangelisation of the poorest of the poor.

Colombia

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n April 2016 ACN will be visiting Colombia. This country has been continuously supported by our benefactors, above all in the area of religious formation, Mass intentions and a few construction projects in the most needy regions.

The intended goal of our visit will be the suburban areas on the fringes of the big cities (Bogotá, Medellín, Cali), the regions of the Chocó (in the East) and Putumayo (in the south) and the frontier area with Venezuela.

Haití n November 2016 we are planning a second visit to Haiti. This, the poorest country in Latin America, continues to live in critical conditions, given the lack of development and the growing climate of instability and violence. The reconstruction of churches, chapels, presbyteries and many of the buildings for the religious communities has frequently been problematical, owing to the extremely high costs, which in turn are the result of the need for special preliminary earthquake protection studies, and the high costs of transport, all add on to the extreme poverty of the country. In every diocese there are many parishes that are isolated and in inaccessible areas and where there is a lack of the most basic services. By means of this visit we intend to reaffirm our support and, in communion with the local Church, study

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Central america

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ollowing our visit to Guatemala and El Salvador, we plan to increase our support for the Church in four of the poorer countries of Central America, namely El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, which between them account for a population of 35 million souls and which, together with Haiti, Bolivia and Paraguay, constitute some of the poorest countries on the American continent.

Bolivia

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ollowing the visit of the Holy Father to this country, our commitment for the support of the Church in Bolivia remains a strong priority, with particular attention to religious formation and the vocations apostolate in a country that suffers profoundly from a dire lack of diocesan priests in the parishes.

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Formation of 1 novice, 3 postulantes and 4 aspirantes, La Paz, Bolivia.

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LATIN AMERICA II Ulrich Kny n two occasions last year, the Latin America II section (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Paraguay, Uruguay) was able to share in the excitement of a visit by the Holy Father to the Latin American subcontinent. In early July Pope Francis spent the last 2 ½ days of his 10 day journey through Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay in the Paraguayan archdiocese of Asunción and at the national Marian shrine of Caacupé, while in September he took advantage of his visit to the USA to make a four-day detour to Cuba. Since I happened to be taking a project trip to Cuba at the same time, I was able to share with the Cuban bishops not only their everyday cares but also their joy at the visit of the Holy Father. Hence, in this short report, I wish to devote a special mention to Cuba, before talking about the two crisis-ridden countries of Argentina and Brazil, sketching out other challenges for the Church in the remaining countries of my section and then going on to report on our aid there.

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Restoration of the house of the Hermanas Misioneras de María Evangelizadora, Santiago, Cuba.

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Hope for Cuba

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lready the previous year, Pope Francis had restored hope for most Cubans in an early end to US economic sanctions, thanks to his successful role as mediator in the diplomatic rapprochement between Cuba and the United States. Hence he was welcomed with great joy by Catholics and non-Catholics alike, when on 19 September 2015 he began his four-day visit to Cuba.

Even if many observers and the international press sought in advance to attribute great political significance to the papal visit, and if many of them were disappointed not to hear a still sharper criticism of the human rights abuses and other injustices in the country, we should not forget that the pontiff was visiting Cuba not first and foremost as a Head of State, but rather as a missionary of mercy.

What he brought with him above all was the messages of the ‘logic of love’ of Jesus, a love of selfless service for one‘s fellow men, a love that is capable of transforming hearts with a glance of mercy, a love ready to set out, to go and visit and build bridges, a love that reveals itself especially in family life.

Pope Francis invited people ‘to live the revolution of tenderness, like Mary the Mother of Mercy’. In Havana he called on the young people to create a ‘culture of encounter’ that sought the common good, and to ‘go out together in search of hope in search of the future and the nobility of the fatherland’.

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Even the Cuban state TV covered the papal visit to a hitherto exceptional extent, with live broadcasts and news reports. For the first time since the revolution, a Catholic priest was permitted to comment live on the television broadcasts. As a result, millions of Cubans were able to follow the moving homilies and addresses of the Holy Father in their own native language. And even the gestures of the Holy Father – the way he went out to people, the way he gave his whole attention to the people who were able to personally greet him, and the way he blessed the sick and the children – these gestures will have left a deep impression in the hearts of all the Cuban people.

Afterwards, in a spirit of profound gratitude, the Cuban bishops compared the visit of Pope Francis with the account of the road to Emmaus. Just as at that time the risen Jesus had explained the Scriptures to the two dejected disciples and given them new

hope, so now Pope Francis had sown the seed of hope in the hearts of the faithful and taught them to raise their eyes to new horizons, they explained.

Even though, from a purely external perspective, little has changed in the conditions for Catholics in Cuba, the bishops, priests, religious and laity are working with an impressive spirit of creativity to encourage this seed to grow still further. As a pontifical charity we must continue to generously support them, for example in the building of churches and places for the celebration and transmission of the Catholic faith, for the basic and ongoing formation, material support and means of transport for priests and other Church workers, the supply of Bibles and catechetical materials, and religious symbols which raise the heart and mind heavenwards.

Holy Mass with Pope Francis and with missionaries from all over the country in the Basilica of Our Lady of Mercy of El Cobre, Cuba.

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Argentina – a change in sight? n Argentina, in a run-off vote on 22 November 2015, the ConservativeLiberal businessman Mauricio Macri finally brought to an end the 12 ½ year era of an authoritarian Kirchner dynasty. The new government has put the fight against corruption, poverty and the drugs trade high on the political agenda. It is also to be expected that there will be a more business-friendly financial policy that will implement extensive economic reforms and hopefully help this essentially bankrupt country out of its lasting economic stagnation and galloping inflation of close on 30%.

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Just how far he will succeed in this balancing act between economic renewal and social inclusion of the millions of Argentinians currently dependent upon state social subventions, remains to be seen. Given the ideological polarisation, the soaring crime rates and the constantly rising prices, our

project partners are at least hoping for a change for the better. Macri‘s plans to lift the export and import restrictions, as well as the currency controls, have also raised hopes that, after an interval of many years, we can finally once again supply the needy local Church in Argentina with books such as the Latin American Bible, our own ACN Child‘s Bible, children‘s Rosary booklet and YOUCAT and without problems supply the financial help needed, above all in the suburban quarters of the major cities and the poor dioceses in the north and northwest of Argentina, for the ongoing formation of priests, the support of religious sisters, catechetical work and the construction or renovation of churches. ‘The chapels and churches are a visible sign of hope, of life, of love and of the fact that that there is still something more on the way’, as one of our project partners in the densely populated, poverty stricken and crime ridden suburban quarters of Buenos Aires recently wrote.

Subsistence aid for 6 Religious Sisters, Daughters of the Divine Saviour, working in two diocesan communities, Neuquen, Argentina.

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Brazil in a profound crisis he signs that the phase of leftwing populist governments in Latin America has now passed its peak were demonstrated not only by the elections in Argentina and shortly after that in Venezuela. In Brazil too the dissatisfaction with President Dilma Rousseff and her ruling Workers Party (PT) is widespread, following continuing revelations about the involvement of several government members in the bribery scandal over the semi-nationalised oil and gas giant Petrobras. The biggest ever corruption scandal in the history of the country has triggered a profound crisis in the government that has only been further drastically exacerbated by a 2% drop in economic performance, an outright breakdown in industrial production and rising inflation, now running at around 10%.

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astic celebration of the local patronal festivals and processions, and the way in which in many places, despite the grinding poverty and dependence on state support, they are still willing to put aside every Centavo in order to be able to build ‘their’ own churches and chapels. At the same time I was able to see for myself the way in which corrupt local prefects obstruct the work of the Church, for example by refusing building permits for Church properties, by cutting already approved subsidies and attempting to intimidate workers who stand up for the rights of the peasant farmers over land conflicts, for the disadvantaged Quilombolas (descendants of black slaves) and for various indigenous groups.

The constantly rising prices and the all-pervading fear of unemployment and poverty in the face of mass redundancies contrast sharply with the admirable successes of the Brazilian Church in the area of selffunding and fraternal solidarity between the various different local churches. So it was that last year again, the downward trend in the project requests received from Brazil was halted.

During a project trip to the underdeveloped Maranhão State in Northeast Brazil, I was profoundly impressed by the commitment of the Catholic faithful and the way they express their faith, especially in the enthusi-

Construction of the Catechetical Centre at the community our Lady of Fatima, Tefé, Brazil.

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Other challenges

Our help

uite apart from the all-pervading corruption, the Latin American subcontinent is also plagued by many other challenges. These include in particular the immense social discrepancies and injustices, the growing violence and drug addiction, and the increasing spirit of individualism, hedonism and secularism, with the loss of Christian values, the increase in the attacks against human life and against the family and the continuing spread of the sects, which only propagate a ‘theology of wealth’.

his kind of in-depth evangelisation, which seeks to make possible an encounter with the living Christ, is something for which our project partners in Latin America are already working in impressive fashion. Last year, in my area of responsibility, we were able to approve financial funding for a total of 432 projects.

Some 44.2% of these projects originated in Brazil, 24.5% in Cuba, 13% in Argentina and 7.6% in Chile. Since we received very few projects from the very poor country of Paraguay and the very secularised Uruguay – which, despite a relatively stable economic situation, still has the poorest local Church in Latin America – I intend to make project trips in both these countries this year in order to intensify the project contacts and signal our willingness to increase our aid.

Q

Although Latin America – with its more than 425 million Catholics (almost 40% of the Catholics in the world) – still has the reputation of being the most Catholic continent on earth, there is an increasingly evident need for a more profound evangelisation – an evangelisation that leads to a greater coherence between faith and life and plants deep in the hearts of the faithful the awareness of being ‘instruments of the Spirit of God in the Church, so that they can encounter Jesus Christ, follow him, love him, adore him, proclaim him and make him known to all’, as it says in Paragraph 14 of the concluding resolution of Aparecida, which remains still the fundamental guiding principle for many pastoral plans in Latin America.

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With regard to the projects for funding ongoing running costs, there is a general and welcome tendency – with the exception of Cuba, where people often struggle even simply to support themselves and where the Church can therefore scarcely expect substantial financial support from the Catholic faithful – whereby the measures taken by the local churches in the direction of self-funding and economic consolidation are beginning to bear fruit. So it is that in comparison to previous years the number of sisters (aspirants) for whom formation aid was requested has fallen to around 100.

Again, last year we were asked to fund ‘only’ 543 seminarians directly for their formation, despite the fact that the training of

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seminarians remains still of the highest priority for us and despite the fact that we have again and again encouraged our partners on the spot to turn to us whenever the admittance of a candidate into a seminary would otherwise have to be refused for financial reasons only.

Only in the vast urban sprawl around the major cities, plagued as they are with extreme poverty, and only in the remote and underdeveloped hinterland is it to be expected that the local churches will still be dependent for some time still on outside help. Last year in these areas we supported some 1,207 religious brethren and members of new spiritual communities, so that they could devote themselves fully and entirely to their apostolate. We likewise provided Mass Stipends for 2,460 priests, which was used partly for the basic support of these priests, partly for their healthcare insurance and partly to fund retreats and ongoing formation courses for them. Other priests agreed to celebrate the requested Masses but went without the accompanying financial offering in order to be able to fund such things as the training of seminarians or to help the persecuted Christians in Syria, thereby making a wonderful gesture of solidarity and spiritual sympathy. All in all, Mass intentions accounted for 21.8% of the projects approved and 13.2% on the funding supplied by us.

Construction of the church of Saint John Paul II at the village VitĂłria RĂŠgia, Jardim Castanhal, Brazil.

Only for expensive investments, such as the construction and renovation of churches and other Church properties,

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was a higher percentage allocated, namely 23.1% of the projects approved. In fact this area accounted for 56.1% of all the financial aid given, since generally speaking the amount of funding required here was considerably higher than in our other projects.

But equally, because the cost of such projects also increasingly frequently exceeds our own capacities, we were only able to approve 100 out of 156 construction projects requested during 2015. In addition to the construction projects, we also helped support the physical presence of the Church in the vast mission fields, with our funding of ‘vehicles for God’ (50 bicycles, four motorcycles 10 cars, two mini-buses and two outboard motors).

Mother reading the Child’s Bible to her children in Chile.

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Likewise of great importance for the transmission and deepening of the faith is the Bible apostolate. During 2015 we were able to send 29,600 Bibles, 53,700 Child‘s Bibles and many other religious books, or in some cases help for the printing of religious literature.

In many dioceses the youth apostolate and the vocations apostolate are still in their infancy or ongoing development. We want to support these just as much as we do the formation courses and retreats for priests, who face an ever increasing workload on an everyday basis and are grateful for any initiatives that help them to keep alive their awareness of the call of Jesus Christ. Since priestly formation is also taking place in an increasingly complex world, we aim to support our project partners not only with specialisation courses for formators in the seminaries but also with programmes for the support of Christian families, especially since healthy Christian families form the basis of sound religious vocations.

The great majority of our project partners are aware that behind the aid we supply are the prayers and the selfless generosity of our benefactors. This is borne out by the often moving reports, testimonies and letters of thanks we receive from Latin America. We are happy to pass these thanks on to our benefactors and assure them of the prayers with which these many bishops, priests, religious sisters and laity strive to ‘pay them back’ for the kindness and charity they have shown.

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BEING GOD’S MERCY

AFRICA I Christine du Coudray Wiehe 2015, and the first voyage by Pope Francis to Africa. t is common practice to submit a devastating report on the situation in Africa, as though the faithful generosity of our benefactors were never enough to stem, however little, the evils that afflict the continent – whether home-grown or inflicted from the outside. We are choosing instead to draw attention to the green shoots that are sprouting up in the life of the Church – though of course we cannot pass over in silence the vicissitudes afflicting the lives of the Sudanese, whether in the North or in the South. And yet …

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Pope Francis with a child in the Central African Republic.

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In November 2015 Pope Francis made his first visit on African soil, to Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic (75 project requests in 2015). Referring to this last mentioned country on the flight home, he confided, ‘In reality this visit was the primary one in my intention, since this country is struggling to emerge from a very difficult period of violent conflict and great suffering for its people’. It is worth adding here that the Church had already suffered a crisis on an unprecedented scale between 2007 and 2010, witnessing the retirement of three bishops, the reduction to the lay state of one third of the clergy, the closing of the major seminary and the dismissal of the academic staff and all the seminarians.

How is it that the Church in this country, so severely struck, has managed to get back on its feet? Providence has granted it new and charismatic pastors, among them the young Archbishop of Bangui, who have encouraged the Church to stand tall again.

There is no doubt that the visit by the Holy Father has played a decisive role in the hearts of the Central African people, who for the past three years have been unable to find a way out from the unprecedented violence that was perpetrated, on the one hand by Muslims from Chad and Sudan, and by the animist Antibalakas on the other.

A path of listening, of dialogue and reconciliation is now being pursued, which will take some time yet – for the wounds are

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still wide open, given the terrible bloodletting, the burning down of homes and entire districts, the rapes, the devastated villages and the stolen livestock…

‘He came to us, and he has gone again.

As I mentioned in my Christmas message, the angel of God has appeared to us, through the person of the Pope, to announce to us the message of Peace. Bangui was jubilant, and all our expectations were exceeded, and the people were weeping with joy. Through his messages the Pope was able to touch the hearts of the politicians, the refugees, the Protestants, the Muslims, the Catholics and indeed all the world. The first miracle of the Pope’s visit was the massive turnout of people from the ‘Km5’ district, which has been cut off for the past four months. Without any hesitation, the people followed the papal cortege into the town. There were no incidents. In coming to Central Africa the Pope was making an act of faith that I will never forget. The security conditions were far from perfect. But yet he dared to come – and God has wiped away our tears. The atmosphere has changed. He has brought peace to people’s hearts and spirits. Now all the barriers have been removed, and we thank God, and the Pope’.

Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga, 20 January 2016.

When we visited the country, just two weeks before this historic visit, we reaffirmed our unequivocal support for the spiritual renewal and reconstruction of the country – and, thanks to you, they were able to hire trucks to transport the pilgrims from all the dioceses into the capital, and to build or renovate the accommodation for the many visitors; and also to provide chasubles, ordered from Poland, to lend beauty and dignity to the celebrations.

Nor can we fail to mention the unlikely gift made by the transitional government of the Central African Republic, consisting of 53 monstrances, currently being fabricated in Poland, so that perpetual Adoration in the nine dioceses of the country may contribute to getting the country back on its feet.

Children willcome Pope Francis in CAR: ‘Welcome Pope Francis’.

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Here is another sign of the already tangible renewal: ‘a Franciscan friar travelled to the notorious ‘Km 5’ the enclave (in the capital) – not to say powder keg – still controlled by small, heavily armed Muslim groups, and spoke with a Muslim there, who told him: it was not the UN forces who liberated the Km 5 quarter, but an old man who came to set us free. It was the Pope. He is a man of God. All we are asking of the UN forces is to help us get rid of the extremists, who are holding us hostage.’

‘During a day of reflection organised by the Spiritan missionaries in the wake of the Holy Father’s visit, one non-Muslim participant who lives in the Km 5 quarter informed them that as soon as the Holy Father set foot in the quarter, Muslims and non-Muslims began spontaneously to embrace one another, as though the presence of the Pope there had released a power that had annihilated all the forces of evil’.

On the western coast of the continent, in the country that once lived under the dictatorship of Sékou Touré, and still bears the scars of it (all the missionaries in the country were expelled overnight in 1967 and most never returned, or at least far too few of them), the infrastructure of the Church is cruelly lacking. Here, in Guinea Conakry (20 project requests in 2015) the 40

major seminary is now nearing completion, thanks to you, and it is already proving necessary to increase the accommodation for the seminarians. The most illustrious son of this country, Cardinal Robert Sarah told me just how precious to him is this period of formation within the country, for prior to this all the candidates for the priesthood had to be trained in neighbouring countries.

On visiting them, he admired the quality of the candidates and of their formators. A number of different projects for formation, construction and reconstruction in the three dioceses of the country are helping the Church here to become increasingly visible.

Further south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (406 project requests in 2015) is coveted by its neighbouring states,

Opening of the Jubilee Year, Daughters of the Resurrection in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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Foundation of a Carmel monastery in the diocese of Morondava, Madagascar.

as also by the major powers, for its exceptional mineral riches. The warfare with its neighbours and with the internal guerrilla groups continues, fear is ever present, the exactions are numerous, the solutions nonexistent. It was in this tortured context that the congregation of the Daughters of the Resurrection began their Jubilee year, in November, in Bukavu.

Exactly 60 years before, with the support of Father Werenfried van Straaten, a Belgian nun first founded this congregation, which today numbers 208 semi-contemplative religious sisters who work in the service of the poorest of the poor. Without your help it could not have expanded as it has, to include numerous communities, not only in the archdiocese of Bukavu but also in Goma and Kindu, in Rwanda, Cameroon, Italy and Brazil.

The precarious environment in which they live makes it essential to provide regular support, so that they can fulfil the missions entrusted to them by the dioceses. ‘We continue on this path, devoting ourselves to the tasks entrusted to us and helping in whatever way we can.

Monseigneur Willy has asked me to be a member of the team overseeing the projects of ACN and to follow them through to their completion. This too is a sort of apostolate. Our sister Léa is working as an adviser for the coordination of the Catholic conventual schools, and I myself have begun the courses at the novitiate of the diocesan sisters of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Kindu’. Sister Anne Marie, the superior of the community in Kindu.

Mr. and Mrs. Kola from Cameroon presenting Pope Francis a shirt with the slogan ‘Yes to Life’.

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In Madagascar (122 requests in 2015) the picture is different again. This island nation is a vast one with an underdeveloped communications network (and consequent isolation), far from Europe (high travel costs), very poor (46% illiteracy, with a deep-rooted attachment to traditional cultures). Despite its considerable natural resources – or perhaps rather because of them – the country is not developing as it should. Its endemic corruption and its subservience to outside countries, which govern for their own interests, are blocking the expected development of this country.

The Catholic Church is almost the sole source of hope for the population and is opening numerous schools, thanks to the combined efforts of many different religious congregations, both native and missionary.

The bishops of the Indian Ocean will share a retreat in Réunion next May, an opportunity for them to pray together, to listen to one another and to rest from their always exces-

sively stressful daily routine. Then there is that inestimable gift represented by the visit of the relics of the Martin family – little Thérèse and her parents! Two reliquaries have been touring the main island for the past three months, surrounded by joyful and prayerful crowds. It has been an occasion during which powerful and poor, young and old, religious and laity have joined together with the same fervour – and all this once again thanks to your help.

The two Sudans (128 requests in 2015) have been torn between Scylla and Charybdis, ever since the partition of the country in July 2011. The hopes for a future worthy of the name did not even have the time to manifest themselves before the interethnic conflicts got the upper hand, accompanied by the never-ending litany of power at any price, massive corruption, privileges, assassinations, and ever-growing distress for the great majority of the population.

Children in the Central African Republic holding a flag with the Logo of ACN. It says ‘Welcome to Pope Francis’.

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Together with the capital of Angola, the capital of South Sudan, Juba, is the most expensive city in Africa. Auxiliary Bishop Daniel Adwok of Khartoum warned us of this back in the summer of 2011: people had failed to anticipate the fact that the allies of yesterday, formerly in league together against Islamism, would quickly find themselves enemies when confronted with sharing the land, the power and the wealth. What can we do to prevent that hope from being dashed for ever?

Only by giving new breath to the Church, which has always played a major role in this country. So it was that, with your help, in January Propaganda Fide invited the entire episcopal conference (one single conference for the two countries) to Rome for a retreat in the ‘Casa Monte Tabor’, followed by a workshop to study together the problems and solutions relating to this particular local Church. It is not often, indeed, that a local Church consisting of nine dioceses should be in search of six new bishops!

Welcomed by the Holy Father and by the secretary of state, and moved by the brotherly concern and open ears of the members of Propaganda Fide, they returned to their places of mission with peace and hope, and we remain at their side, with profound concern for this Church, which remains our top priority in Africa.

• Child praying at the beginning of Mass, Tombura, Sudan.

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AFRICA II Toni W. Zender he annual report that follows covers three parts. After a short introduction with remarks on the organisation of the section, I want to go into my project trip of the past year and then finally give a short preview with examples of the main priorities for the project work in 2016.

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Introduction

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he Africa II section covers 15 countries of the Anglophone part of Africa. The project requests are processed by three staff members, the section head and two project workers. On 1 February 2015 a new project worker took over work on the projects for West and Southern Africa. Altogether, in the course of the year 1100 project requests were registered, of which around 120 were for Mass stipends.

Given the high number of project requests received, a newly established fourth Africa section will ease the workload on the Africa II section in 2016. This means that in the second half of 2016 some of the countries of western and southern Africa will be transferred to the new Africa IV section.

Project trip to Kenya1 n October 2015 we made a 2 ½ week project trip to Kenya. The objective of the journey was to experience for ourselves both the local Church and culture of the country. As the leading economic power in the region, Kenya has the highest economic performance in the whole of Central and Southeast Africa in terms of GNP. During our trip we visited six dioceses, representatives of the bishops’ conference and the apostolic nuncio.

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At the present time the Catholic Church in Kenya is facing an increasing threat from radical Islam. Although only 11% of the population profess the Muslim faith, this minority is very adept at articulating its presence. By building numerous mosques, establishing radio stations and seeking to woo away young school leavers with financial scholarships, they are trying to rapidly increase the percentage of Muslims. Another aspect that plays an important part in this context are mixed marriages between Muslim men and Christian women.

1 In view of Pope Francis’ trip to Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic from 25-30 November 2015, the Central Church Statistics Office has published statistics relating to the Catholic Church in the three countries visited. The following was disclosed about Kenya: ‘Kenya has a surface area of 580,367 km2 and a population of 42,961 .000 inhabitants, of whom 13,862,000 are Catholics, equivalent to 32.3% of the population. There are 26 ecclesiastical circumscriptions, 925 parishes and 6,542 pastoral centres. There are currently 38 bishops, 2,744 priests, 6303 religious (798 male and 5,505 female), and 11,343 catechists. There are 5,501 seminarians. The Church has 12,195 centres for Catholic education, from pre-school to university level. With regard to charitable and social centres belonging to the Church or directed by ecclesiastics or religious, in Kenya there are 513 hospitals and clinics, 21 leper colonies, 117 homes for the elderly, sick or disabled, 1,173 orphanages and nurseries, 110 family advisory centres, 11 special centres for social education or rehabilitation and 203 institutions of other types.’

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In the past, in the northeast of the country and along the coastal region, there were a number of attacks by the Somali terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab, a splinter group of the Al Qaeda network. The most serious of these attacks were the deliberate and targeted killing of 147 non-Muslim students at Garissa University in April 2015 and the attack on the Westgate shopping centre in the central Westlands quarter of Nairobi, which claimed 67 lives.

The dioceses in the northeast and along the coastal region are an exception in the context of this majority Christian country, for in this region in many places the majority of the population are Muslims. In the past this has led to political unrest, and it still burdens the relationship between Catholics and Muslims to this day.

Mass during the family day of the diocese Kitui, Kenya.

During 2015 ACN helped the Church in Kenya above all for the construction of churches, parish houses and with motor vehicles for pastoral transport. We also helped with Mass stipends for the diocesan and religious clergy, and with support for the studies of seminarians. We further supported a number of initiatives for the establishment of diocesan radio stations. In future we intend to support the evangelisation of the young people of the country by integrating a YOUCAT centre within the pastoral centre of the diocese of Homa Bay.

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The focus for 2016

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elow I want to outline two priority projects which began in 2015 and which we will continue to support in the current year:

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Rebuilding of Church infrastructure in northern Nigeria

Last year the rapid rebuilding of Church infrastructure in northern Nigeria was a special priority, following the driving back of the Boko Haram terrorist militia there.

For example, in the diocese of Maiduguri in the northeast of the country, we gave over €190,000 for the rebuilding of parish houses. ACN also gave emergency aid of 60,000 Euros for the support of returning families. In the coming year the process of rebuilding will be continued, so that we can support the returning Christian population and give them fresh hope for a peaceful life.

At the same time it is worth mentioning here that in the so-called Middle Belt, the central part of the country, we intend to try and combat the further spread of radical Islam by supporting an increased regional presence of priests and Church infrastructure.

2

Studies in marriage and the family

The Anglophone countries of Africa continue to be in the sights of a variety of Western organisations, both state-funded and NGOs, whose goal is to push so-called ‘gender ideology’. We are attempting to counter this threat by especially promoting projects in the field of the family apostolate, pro-life campaigns, natural family planning and the youth apostolate. Since the autumn of 2015 four priests from Malawi have been following a doctoral course of studies in India, at the John Paul II Institute for studies in marriage and the family. On their return they will work as formators in their own home dioceses. We intend to continue this programme in 2016 also, and consequently in a few months time seven more African priests will begin their studies in India.

During our project trip to Kenya discussions were held about the establishment of a John Paul II Institute in Anglophone Africa.

In doing so we were able to agree upon some preliminary ideas with regard to the location and the cooperation between the various Church institutions.

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Food and goods distrubution in Cathedral of Yola, Nigeria.

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AFRICA III

Rafael D’Aqui

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he situation of the Church in the T countries of the Africa III Section during 2015.

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he year 2015 was punctuated by incidents that reflected the radical outlook of certain Islamist groups, above all in northern Africa. These groups, such as Boko Haram, are spreading fear and terror among Christians, but not only this, since their attacks are aimed at the rejection of Western culture and of every form of openness to dialogue and peaceful coexistence. In fact the Holy Father himself, in a meeting with the bishops of northern Africa in March 2015, praised ‘the courage, fidelity and perseverance of the bishops of Libya and likewise of the priests, religious and laity who remain in this country in spite of the innumerable dangers’.

In fact radical Islam is seeking to destabilise the situation, or draw the attention of public opinion away from countries like Tunisia, where, following the ‘Arab Spring’ there has appeared to be growing evidence of an opening to the non-Islamic world. This at least is what we were told by a priest working in Tunis, in an interview with ACN regarding the terrorist attack in July 2015: ‘The present government does not want an Islamic state, governed by the sharia.

On the contrary, I believe that it is for this reason that the jihadists want to attack Tunisia because, despite all the difficulties, this country is moving towards democracy and stability.’

Other terrorist attacks have been carried out during this year, for example in Bamako, Mali, in Niamey, Niger and in northern

Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme inspecting a burnt church in Bahuli, Nigeria.

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Cameroon, where young adolescents blew themselves up in broad daylight in a busy marketplace.

These events underline a great concern of our section, as we seek to accompany the Church in countries such as Mali, Niger, Chad, Libya, northern Cameroon, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, among others. A feature all these countries share in common is these radical Islamic movements, which are disseminating fear and generating a flood of refugees, who then wander from one country to another in Africa and often end up knocking on our doors in Europe.

An important aspect of our work in 2015 was likewise our visits to Angola in October, and to Mozambique in April. Our intention was to try to understand how best to serve our brothers and sisters there, following the many years of civil war and Marxist ideology (which sought to eliminate the Church from the public sphere and from society). In a few cases the Church properties that were confiscated have subsequently been returned to her (it is worth noting in passing that the situation is a little better in Angola than in Mozambique).

We wanted to be able to agree with the bishops on a programme of reconstruction that went beyond the simple mending of structures but instead included above all the rebuilding of the communities and their pastors. Of course we need to invest in the construction of new chapels and the

restoration of certain Church properties, or again, to fund the purchase of vehicles, so that the Word of God can be carried still further, but such a strategy will not be sufficient, in our view, unless it is supplemented by other elements. In this sense we are working to identify opportunities for ‘recycling’ the clergy (by helping to promote the longed-for ongoing formation of the clergy, which had to be suspended for lack of resources) – without however forgetting the formation of the formators in the seminaries, so that in addition to their intellectual formation they can be allowed to develop their particular charism as formators and their own priestly identity.

We also discussed other aspects, for example the revival of spiritual retreats for the diocesan clergy, where there was a need to devote more attention to their spiritual formation. Or again, the formation of novice

Opening the ‘Door‘ of Mercy in Camanongue, 31th of December 2015, Angola.

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mistresses – especially in the local congregations, which do not have the resources to pay for the cost of a solid formation; and finally the support of families, via the promotion of the family apostolate.

As we had anticipated when creating this new section, we already had good contacts with the Church in São Tomé and Príncipe, through our correspondence with them.

The situation on this little island nation is particularly worrying, especially with regard to young people. The country has the highest rate of suicide among young people in all Africa.

The lack of opportunities is demotivating for young people and there is a need to reinforce the missionary ‘team’ serving this society, so that ‘they may have life in abundance’. We were in contact a few times by telephone with the Cardinal of Cape Verde, who for his part asked our support to meet the great challenge of the formation of the laity, who are sadly increasingly being

The new car has arrived Fr. John P. Mallare, Dakar, Senegal.

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seduced by the new religious movements that have come in from other countries like Brazil. What is needed here is a serious investment in the new evangelisation.

We have responded by offering catechetical material and supporting initiatives for Catholic formation, and by building up the communities. Similarly, in Guinea-Bissau we made contact in order to see how we can develop our mission of supporting the Church there in her needs. In this country the family apostolate is the priority of priorities and we are looking for ways of supporting its development. The presence of Islam in the country is not new, but it is increasing, with migration (from Senegal and Guinea Conakry) and a high birth rate.

Burundi has been facing a serious crisis that has sparked growing fears, following the decision to grant President Nkurunziza a third term in office. The Church has withdrawn from the position of observer for the presidential elections, while denouncing the illegality of the candidature of the president, who is manipulating the law in order to remain in power. The consequences could be very serious, since the inaugural statement of the president’s new term of office is threatening to review the freedom of the Church, on the grounds of her supposed ‘interference’ in the political process.

The present situation is reminiscent in many ways of the conflicts of a few years ago, when, without any apparent explanation, numerous dead bodies appeared in the streets, above all in the suburbs where there is opposition and resistance.

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he response of our T section in 2015 to the pastoral challenges of the Church in Africa

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uring 2015 the Africa III section received a little over 780 new requests for aid.

We worked hard to support our brothers and sisters in the faith in regions such as northern Cameroon, where the incursions of the jihadist terror group Boko Haram brought fear and destruction, leaving schools and healthcare centres shut and police stations damaged. Sadly, the insecurity has even intruded on the peace of the Eucharistic celebrations. Some bishops in the region were obliged to send round circulars, suggesting measures for tightening up the checks on people entering the churches to worship. This was the case in Maroua-Mokolo, where the Catholic faithful participating in the celebration of Mass in the open air (since the cathedral of the diocese is much too small for the large numbers of people attending), had to pass through security checks in order to be sure that no terrorists had infiltrated into the congregation.

New church construction works.

Cape Verde.

Our task here, apart from helping the diocese for the construction of a larger and, hopefully, safer cathedral than the present ‘open-air’ one, has been to support the refugees so that the Church can at least help them to rebuild their lives in the towns, after they have been forced to flee the frontier regions. It is a new start that is by no GIVE JOY, GIVE HOPE

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means easy for them to make, because the already overfilled structures like the schools need new classrooms, and because people accustomed to a rural way of life near the frontier now have to find a new way of supporting themselves in an urban environment in cities such as Maroua and Mokolo.

Precious written testimony as to how much our help was a consolation for our Catholic brethren in Niger came to us from a congregation of religious sisters whose superior wrote to us after a canonical visitation there:

In the same way we had the pleasure of being able to help the Catholics of Niamey to rebuild the properties that were vandalised after the events of January 2015 in the capital, as a result of the protests there, which caused serious damage to many properties, including churches, convents, schools and the private homes of Christian families.

‘What moved me most was the situation of the Church in Niger, which was sorely tried by the destruction of churches and Catholic schools. In Niamey our sisters took in refugees who had been forced to leave their home countries after a week. At the moment everything is calm. We visited a parish burned down by the Muslims, which is now being rebuilt. We are very grateful to all those kind people who have generously offered themselves so that the gospel can be proclaimed even in situations where nothing but persecution and so many provocations can be expected. Our five missionary sisters who are now in Niamey studied at the CELAF in Abidjan, thanks to the scholarships that your organisation gave us. They are very grateful to you and they say that it was thanks to this formation, which strengthened them in their faith, that they were able to overcome the provocations. They now feel ready to pursue their mission in the midst of the Muslims, through a witness of nonviolence, fraternity, peace, prayer and service.’

Monument of Cristo Rei in Lubango, Angola.

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3

ooking ahead to 2016 – chalL lenges and priorities.

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here will be a few major projects on our books during this year 2016, including the Pan - African Divine Mercy Congress In Rwanda, not only with a view to disseminating the devotion but also to a deeper reflection on the message of mercy in the context of the current Jubilee year.

It is worth remembering during this Holy Year of Mercy that we are united to many people who will pass through many ‘Holy Doors’ built with our aid in their communities and of great spiritual significance to them. For example, in the diocese of Lwena in Angola, five of the six doors opened by the bishop are in communities where we helped to rebuild chapels, which are themselves a part of the spiritual patrimony of that portion of the people of God. The sixth door, in reality, is a doorway made of fabric in a parish that was destroyed by the civil war but where the diocese made the decision to leave it like that without rebuilding it, as a reminder of the evils of the past, to which we need to reconcile ourselves in order to live as Christians.

In Angola we will continue to support the initiative of the episcopal conference of the country for the ongoing formation of the clergy, thereby concluding the work begun in 2014-2015 with a view to strengthening their priestly identity in the service of the Church and updating their priestly formation, given that many of them have

never followed any refresher courses since the initial formation they were given in the seminaries.

Following the two Family Synods, we are conscious of the need to strengthen and develop the pastoral outreach for the support of families in Africa, where the Church sees herself as the Family of God. It is a matter here of helping the domestic church to educate her children better for life and for true love – as opposed to what is proposed to them by so many organisations linked to international finance.

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Workshop with 80 priests of the diocesee, Byumba, Rwanda.

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ASIA-AFRICA Fr Andrzej Halemba The witness of Christians – the seed of new hope for the Middle East? he situation in the Middle East is still dominated by the war in Syria and the violence of the ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq, with all the consequent misery of the millions of refugees it has left behind. It is true that the international community has provided a great deal of money in order to help in Iraq and Syria yet at the same time, it is also true that the Christians have in many respects been neglected, often refusing out of fear and for other reasons, to let themselves be officially registered as refugees.

The situation has deteriorated tragically.

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Syria ast year some 55,000 people were killed by the war in Syria. More than 13.5 million people within Syria are in need of humanitarian aid, while over 4 million Syrians have fled abroad and more than 7.6 million people have been uprooted from their homes within the country itself.

For example, Maronite Archbishop Samir Nassar of Damascus tells us the story of a woman and her four children who fled from the bombing of her village.

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After walking for four hours through the mountains and valleys, she was forced to leave her two smallest children by the roadside, because she could no longer carry them in her arms. She felt forced to choose between all of them dying, or at least being able to save the other two children.

The father of one family, who had lost everything, compared his situation with that of a beetle trapped in the bottom of a jar and unable to escape. ‘It runs round and round in a circle until it collapses and dies. That is my situation.’

Maronite Archbishop Samir Nassar of the Archeparchy of Damascus in Syria

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The wave of refugees from the Middle East is often described as a ‘tsunami’. It is an image that was also used by Patriarch Gregorios III, the head of the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church, in an open letter to young people. In it he writes that the exodus is so massive that it seriously puts at risk

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the future of the Church in Syria. ‘The mass wave of emigration by young people, above all in Syria, but also in Lebanon and Iraq, breaks my heart, wounds me deeply and is like a fatal blow to me. What future has the Church in the face of such a tsunami of emigration? What will become of our homeland? What will happen to our parishes and church facilities?’

Nevertheless, there is still a strong desire among the people of Syria to stay on in their homes. The Church wants to help them, and there is still a hope that many will return when the situation finally improves.

Also of particular concern is the fact that some 2.7 million children in Syria are unable to attend school on account of the war. Over

Gregorios III Laham in St George parish in Maalula (Maaloula) in front of an icon profanated by ISIS, Homs, Syria.

the course of the last four years there were no fewer than 4,000 attacks on schools – which represents half of all the attacks on schools worldwide. Until recently, Syria was among the countries with the highest rates of schooling, but now the rate of school attendance among the children of the internally displaced families has fallen to around 17%. In those areas subject to frequent air attacks and bombings, no more than 6% of children still attend school.

At least there was a happy end to the abductions of two priests in 2015. The first of these, Father Jacques Mourad, was abducted by IS in May. He spent six months as a prisoner, but was finally able to escape, with the help of a Muslim friend whose own family had been helped through the aid programmes set up by Father Mourad for the poor and disadvantaged. This friend, who had links with IS, told the priest how impressed he had been by the aid Father Mourad had organised in Qaratayn – with food, medication and accommodation all funded with the help of the aid agencies, including ACN. In an exclusive interview with ACN, Father Mourad went on to say, ‘What ACN did to help us played a major role in my liberation.’ The second priest to be abducted was the Franciscan, Father Dhiya Aziz, who was abducted for the first time in July 2015 and then released again a week later.

He was then abducted again, a second time, on 23 December and released again on 4 January 2016.

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Iraq n Iraq too the situation is critical. By now 2 million Iraqis have fled abroad and another million are still living as internal refugees in other parts of the country. Here again the situation of the Christians is particularly tragic. In 2003 there were approximately 1.5 million Christians in Iraq; today their number is no more than 300,000.

This means that on average, over the past 12 years, roughly 100,000 Christians have left their country each year. In the city of Mosul there were still 60,000 Christians prior to 2003. In the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, there were no more than 35,000 of them. Today, since the seizure of the city by the fighters of the so-called ‘Islamic State’ there is not a single Christian left.

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feel that the Iraqi government has let them down and completely neglected them.

They feel that the Kurdish authorities and the Peshmerga gave them false assurances of safety, by promising them that no harm would come to them from ISIS. Many of the refugees afterwards reported: The Peshmerga told us to stay in our homes. ‘We are here to protect you’ they said. But just half an hour later there was not a single Peshmerga soldier to be seen, and ISIS started shelling their villages.

The refugees are very grateful for our support, yet the one question they keep asking over and over again, is this: ‘When will we be able to return to our towns and villages?’

If there is even the smallest chance that the Christians can return to their original homes

Many Christians, and other minorities, find themselves faced with the choice – in their own country – of either converting to Islam, paying the so-called jizya tax, or being killed.

As Christians they are no longer respected as equal citizens within their own societies.

Overall, there is an obvious and continuing imposition of Islam. Just recently in Iraq, for example, a law was proposed whereby if only one of the two parents should convert to Islam, the children would automatically be regarded as Muslims.

Increasingly, Christians are unable to see any future for themselves and, what is still worse, they suffer from a sense of betrayal.

Especially since last summer the Christian remnant in northern Iraq feel they have been deceived in many different ways. They 56

Financial aid to provide food for 13.500 Christian families (IDPs) from Mossul and Nineveh, Iraq.

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(in the plain of Niniveh, in Homs, etc), then ACN is willing to provide help to rebuild the Christian infrastructure there. Last year the number of Christian refugees registered by the Church authorities in Kurdistan was 13,500 families. Since there is no immediate chance for these people to return to their old homes or to find work and a safe environment, some 3,500 of these 13,500 families have already left the country.

Altogether there are some 2 million children in Iraq who are unable to attend school as a result of the situation in the country and for an additional 1.2 million children aged between 5 and 14, there is a danger that they will be unable to continue with their schooling. Almost a fifth (5,300) of all the schools in Iraq have been destroyed, damaged or converted into emergency shelter for the refugees, while others have been commandeered for military purposes.

Hence another priority is to try and ensure some sort of schooling, above all for the children of the refugee families.

Meanwhile, there have been some positive developments in Iraq. The situation has stabilised to some extent and there is now a hope that the ‘Shi’ite’ government and its army will succeed, in cooperation with the ‘Sunni’ towns, in reconquering the towns and cities currently occupied

by ISIS. Such cooperation between Sunni and Shia forces in something of a novelty, and a source of hope.

Ethiopia here is scarcely another country in the world marked by such vast contrasts as Ethiopia. It is an ancient Christian country. ‘See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?’ (Acts 8:36), says the Ethiopian official to Philip in the Acts of the Apostles. With this spontaneous decision the history of Ethiopian Christianity began, just a few years after the death of Christ.

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In fact the history of the country was already closely interwoven with that of the Old Testament, and it was from here that the Queen of Sheba came to Jerusalem, ‘with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones’ (1 Kings 10:2), because she had heard of the wisdom of King Solomon. According to one tradition, she is said to have conceived a son by King Solomon, who later brought the Ark of the Covenant back with him to Ethiopia. In Axum, the ‘Ethiopian Rome’ this relic is still jealously guarded and revered in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Sion.

At the same time, however, there are many areas of absolute primary evangelisation in the country, some inhabited by tribes who have hitherto not only never encountered Christianity but have also never come into contact with modern civilisation. Such is the case in the region of South Omo, where as a result of the building of roads and other communications, the people have suddenly been confronted with a modern civilisation

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that they had previously shunned. This situation has brought entirely new challenges and problems with it, which the Catholic Church must now confront. Now some of the first church communities are being established in this inaccessible region, an extremely hot and arid area, where there is no electricity supply.

The Church also faces similar problems in other Ethiopian regions. In 2015 the new eparchy of Bahir Dar–Dessi was established, with 20 parish communities and around 40 outstations; part of it lies in the BenishangulGumuz region – one of the poorest and most neglected regions of the country, close to the frontier with Sudan. It has a population of around 990,000 souls, something over one fifth of whom belong to the Gumuz ethnic group. In the late 19th century and right into the first third of the 20th century many of the

A Priest celebrating Holy Mass outside, Awasa-Lat, Ethiopia.

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Gumuz people became victims of the slave traders. To this day they still follow a huntergatherer lifestyle.

We are helping above all in the vicariates of Adigrat and Gambella, among other things with solar panels and with donkeys for transport. In Jimma-Bonga we are helping build new chapels in some of the villages. The tribal peoples in these areas are frequently regarded by the rest of the population as ‘subject’ and ‘inferior’.

Other important projects in Ethiopia include those for the support of refugees. Ethiopia is the country with the highest number of refugees in the world. ACN has helped, for example in the vicariate of Gambella, for the construction of a chapel for refugees from South Sudan.

Another challenge is responding to the drought and food crisis which is currently affecting some 18 million people. The crisis is also directly affecting Church life, since the food shortages mean that many people no longer have the strength to get to church, a journey that often involves a 3 to 4 hour walk. Our help is needed above all for the catechists and their families, who normally support themselves from the land. So far ACN has provided emergency aid for 1,415 of these lay catechists in 13 of the dioceses most severely affected by the drought. This aid, which totals €460,000, translates to a sum of €325 per family for an entire year. In providing this aid we were in fact the first organisation to help the Church in Ethiopia in this crisis.

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Egypt he murder of 21 Coptic Orthodox Christians in Egypt by terrorists of the so-called ‘Islamic State’ in February 2015 was an atrocity that shocked not only the Christians in Egypt. The response in wider Egyptian society gave some reason to hope that something may have changed there. Coptic Catholic Bishop Kyrillos William Samaan of Assiut, in Upper Egypt, observed that the decisive reaction of the Egyptian president and the air attacks against IS positions in Libya had reassured people.

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The Christians had been particularly touched by the visit of the President to Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II, to express his sympathies, and there have since been various other touching gestures of solidarity. The Egyptian president announced the construction of a large church at the state’s expense, in memory of the murdered Christians. The governor of the province has already laid the foundation stone, together with the Bishop of Samalut. Additionally, their village has been renamed in their honour and is now to be known as ‘Village of the Martyrs.’

The Prime Minister also visited the village and the families of the victims have been promised a sum of money in compensation. Egypt is now ‘on the path of renewal’, Bishop Samaan believes. He reports that many Christians have told him of Muslims who have expressed their sympathy over the murders. Yet there were also some

less positive reactions. For example, one salafist sheikh expressed his approval of the murders and some Egyptian newspapers commented to the effect that IS had been ‘right to slaughter the Christian sheep’. However, Bishop Kyrillos maintained that such views were not representative of the majority and expressed his belief that the killings had brought Muslims and Christians closer together. He said, ‘There was a prevailing sense that it was Egyptians who had been attacked. That is important, for it shows that we are all Egyptians, regardless of our religion.’

The 21 murdered Copts were immediately added by Pope Tawadros II to the register of Martyrs and are now venerated by the Coptic Orthodox Church as Saints. Pope Francis has also referred to them as Martyrs. Monsignor Joachim Schroedel, who is chaplain to the German-speaking Catholics in Egypt, has also spoken of the many messages of sympathy from Muslims who had expressed admiration for the fidelity of the murdered Christians to their faith.

We pray that together, by their witness, these Christians will indeed sew the seed for a new spirit and new hope for the entire Middle East region.

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ASIA I Irene Eschmann

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or some time now each annual report of the Asia I section has devoted itself in particular detail to two countries out of those covered by the section. On this occasion, in addition to China, which is currently the most important nation in Asia, the focus is on Myanmar/Burma, a country which – if everything goes well – is currently experiencing something of a miracle, namely the peaceful transition to a democratically elected government after almost 5 decades of brutal military rule.

China n China in January 2015, the state office for religious affairs published its usual working plan. As already in the past, one of the demands of the paper was for the Patriotic Association and the ‘official’ bishops‘ conference, which is not recognised by the Vatican, to continue its own election and ordination of bishops – in other words, that it should appoint and ordain bishops without papal approval.

According to the plan, the religions in China ought to build up and propagate a ‘sinicised’ theological thinking, in other words a thinking in the service of socialism2.

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Throughout the year official documents and articles by state-controlled media reasserted these points, along with warnings against Western infiltration through the help of religion. President Xi Jinping himself emphasised in May, in an influential speech during an important party meeting on principles, that the country must hold firmly to the independence of the religious communities and that religion must be further adapted to socialism. Such attempts to place religion in the service of socialism, and to throw up pseudo-theological justifications for this, can be traced right back to the 80s and 90s3. Yet the current leadership appears 2 There is no known official definition of this term.

3 Cf. China Source Blog, 01.05.15, Brent Fulton, ‘New Report Highlights Roots of Religious Persecution in China,’ http:// www.chinasource.org/blog/posts/new-report-highlights-rootsof-religious-persecution-in-china

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to be set on using ‘sinisation’ increasingly as a means of consolidating its power and maintaining the stability of society in economically difficult times.

Mgr. Cosmas Xi Enxiang, the underground bishop of Yixian in the province of Hebei, has been not been seen since Good Friday 2001. At the end of January 2015 a state official initially informed his family that their relative had died. Shortly afterwards, however, the authorities reversed this statement and denied all knowledge of his whereabouts. To this day the fate of Bishop Xi, who would now be 95, is unknown. He is one of around 10 bishops who are currently still being held in detention, under house arrest or otherwise restricted in their freedom of movement.

The state campaign in the province of Zhejiang to remove all crosses and demolish above all Protestant churches, caused further concern to the Christian communities in the country and to the wider world outside China. The campaign was concentrated in the region of the diocese of Wenzhou, although it appeared at times to extend also to the areas of the dioceses of Taizhou and Hangzhou in the same province, before dying down again towards the end of last year. By that time, according to a number of different estimates, the state had had around 1500 crosses removed, and a whole series of churches either partly or entirely demolished4.

Catholic faithfull in Tibet.

4 UCANews, 14.12.15, www.ucanews.com

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In July, it was in fact the semi-official bodies – that is to say the Catholic Patriotic Association of Zhejiang and the Protestant Provincial Christian Council – that were the first to publicly express their annoyance at the destruction. The ‘official’ Bishop Vincent Zhu Weifang of Wenzhou and his priests protested against the demolitions outside the building of the state administration. Both he and his coadjutor bishop, Mgr. Peter Zhao Zhumin, who is not recognized by the State, wrote sharp, open letters of protest to the authorities, together with their respective clergy. Christians of all denominations, both from the official communities and the underground ones, found themselves united in their distress, and fasted and prayed for one another. Often they were unable to protect their crosses and their churches, yet their faith and solidarity grew stronger during this time.

At the end of April 2015, for the first time since the resumption of talks between the Vatican and the Chinese government, episcopal elections took place in the province of Henan, for the dioceses of Zhumadian and Anyang. The elections were held under strict state control. However, both candidates had already received their nomination by the Holy See a while before. So far only Mgr. Zhang Yilin of Anyang has actually been ordained. In July, Mgr. Martin Wu Qinjing was finally installed as Bishop of Zhouzhi in the province of Shaanxi – 10 years after his ordination in 2005. He had spent the greater part of the intervening period under house arrest in the minor seminary of Xi’an. However, illegitimate ordinations, which had been feared on the basis of the above-mentioned working plan of the state office of religious affairs, did not in fact take place in 2015.

Mass Stipends for 48 priests working in Kalay diocese, Myanmar/Burma.

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Meanwhile, the steady growth of the Church in China and the deepening of the faith among Catholics have continued. Once again this year a substantial number of adults received baptism, most of them during the packed festive liturgies at Christmas and Easter. Our project partners frequently mention the vitality of the Catholic communities, their profound missionary zeal and the powerful attraction of the Faith, particularly among educated young urban dwellers.

The vitality and the strength of these communities are reason for many of our project partners to look with confidence towards the future. Although they are victims of oppression themselves, Chinese Catholics are still outward looking, seeing beyond their own local church and national frontiers. For example, during Lent, various Catholic communities in China held prayer vigils for the persecuted Christians throughout the world and especially in Syria and Iraq. China‘s Catholics are taking on the words of Pope Francis with great interest.

In union with rest of the universal Church, most of the dioceses and Catholic communities on the mainland5 formally began the Year of Mercy at the beginning of December. Ultimately, in the view of many observers6, even the countless efforts by the state to regulate, inventorize, and control the Church, and not least to remove crosses from rooves, are testimony to the fact that the state has not yet succeeded in checking the spread of Christianity in the People‘s Republic.

5 Agenzia Fides, 11.12.15, www.fides.com 6 e.g. Richard Madsen, National Catholic Reporter, ‘China’s Catholics fear new anti-Christian campaign,’ 04.12.15

Myanmar/Burma n Myanmar/Burma the attention of the nation during 2015 was focused on the first free parliamentary elections since 1990. For the more than 53 million Burmese7, last November was the time their future was at stake. Would the elections be fair and above all peaceful? Would the generals really be willing to give up power after almost 5 decades of military rule and a five-year transitional period? Would a future civilian government really be able to implement its new policies unhindered, given the deeply entrenched power base of the old ruling caste?

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To this day, over three months after the landslide victory of the National League for Democracy, these questions still remain to some extent unanswered. Nonetheless, early positive signs at the end of last year did at least raise some expectations. First of all, the election process went through without violence. The government quickly conceded defeat. The exceptional moral authority of the leader of the opposition greatly helped to unify and motivate the population.

Those who were fortunate enough to visit Burma in November 2015 were able to witness a local Catholic Church that has shared the poverty and impotence of the people for decades and which now with all due caution, looks to the future in great hope. The challenges seem overwhelming, 7 http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/myanmar

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however. The legacy of the military junta is one of indescribable damage to the country’s economy and environment, and above all to the souls of the people, and thus to society. At the same time the opening up of Burma has brought with it a flood of confusing and often unconstructive influences.

Even more than before, the priests, sisters and bishops will have their hands full in trying to guide the faithful and protect the young people from drug abuse, human trafficking and prostitution, offering them alternatives to materialism, combating poverty, strengthening families, once again enabling the Church to make its own contribution to the educational system, and, and, and… Nonetheless, the underlying conditions for approaching this mammoth task are by no means bad, even though at first sight perhaps somewhat unspectacular.

Burma has not yet been secularised, and religion still plays a central role in the life of the Burmese people.

The long years of persecution and political instability have taught them to persevere in prayer. The strongly Buddhist environment is not just simply a source of certain danger that the small flock of Catholics lose their faith, it actually also fosters a tendency to contemplation among the Catholics. Some of the dioceses and congregations are keen to establish meditation centres or contemplative communities. The daily prayer of the Rosary in the parishes is still well attended.

Recently, the people have begun, slowly but surely, to shake off the notorious fear that the regime planted within them.

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As a result the laity are beginning to take on an active role in the parishes and are themselves increasingly taking the initiative. Especially among Catholic youth, and mothers belonging to the associations of St Anne, there is a growing spirit of commitment and creativity. All the members of the Church are little by little growing in confidence in their own abilities. The joy in the Word of God is spreading. Most of the dioceses and female religious communities are showing a strong interest in the Bible apostolate. Almost everywhere, basic communities – taking the Sacred Scriptures as their source – or various Bible programmes are either planned for the near future, in the process of being established, or indeed already functioning and bearing real fruit.

We frequently heard it said in the bishops’ chanceries that catechesis must be deepened, adapted to the new conditions and taken even to the remotest villages. Based on the various estimates of our project partners, depending on the region, between 65 and 90% of Catholics regularly attend Sunday Mass. Misfortune seems to bring the faithful closer to the Church, and in the refugee camps of the northwest the Masses are particularly well attended. Likewise, the ongoing conflict there is moving many people to slowly shake off their resignation and start to take charge of their lives again.

A similar phenomenon is also frequently observed in the wake of natural disasters.

It is also worth mentioning here a few of the more unusual events that have happened in the last two years. In November 2014 thou-

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sands of Catholics from all over the country gathered in Yangon to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the presence of the Catholic Church in Burma. Prior to this, some the faithful had reflected on their roots and the history of their local Church in a series of seminars, courses and other gatherings.

On 24 May 2014 Cardinal Angelo Amato beatified the PIME missionary, Father Mario Vergara and his Burmese catechist, Isidoro Ngei Ko Lat. Exactly 64 years earlier, almost to the day, the two of them had suffered martyrdom in Shadaw, in what is now the diocese of Loikaw. Thus, in 31-year-old Isidore Ngei, the Church in Burma was able to celebrate its first ever local person to be beatified. On top of this, the consistory in February 2015 gave them their first ever cardinal, Archbishop Charles Maung Bo of Yangon.

For some years before this, the new cardinal had frequently spoken out, now and then passionately, to decry social evils, to call his people to hope and to live in peace with one another, to admonish the government to care for the people and, not least, following the elections, to make the connection between the Year of Mercy and the need for national reconciliation. Now, in him, the sorely-tried little flock of Burmese Catholics have a somewhat more prominent spokesman within the universal Church.

During 2015, as every year in both China and Burma, the Asia I section has once again supported a whole range of projects for the construction and renovation, primar-

ily of churches and chapels, but also of educational centres, parish centres and religious convents. Yet there was a somewhat larger number of projects for various forms of pastoral programmes, in particular for the ongoing training of priests and religious.

Within this wider trend there were of course different emphases in the two countries.

For example, at the present moment our Chinese project partners seem to be very keen on scholarly symposia and meetings for deepening knowledge and exchanging experiences. Meanwhile, the so-called pastoral projects in Burma are concentrating on an increasing number of youth programs, Bible workshops and other forms of schooling for the laity. Among the subjects studied by our Burmese scholarship holders, missionary theology was particularly popular.

The students of the Chinese local church, whose missionary zeal is well-known, chose a range of specialisations, including communications studies. Happily, the scholarships for Chinese students were shared almost exactly half and half among religious sisters and priests. Construction and education are two important and mutually complementary means of strengthening the communities. Thanks to the generosity of our benefactors, we were once again able to help for both types of project last year, without too often having to say no. •

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ASIA II Véronique Vogel NEPAL andlocked and squeezed between two giants – to the north by China (Tibet) and to the south, the east and the west by India – this country has come through a dramatic and deadly year.

On 25 April last year an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 brought sudden devastation to this land, already tormented by years of bloody political conflict perpetrated by the terrorist NDA group against the religious minorities,

by Maoist factions and by advocates of a return to the Hindu monarchy, against a background of a government crisis due to the absence of a constitution. Together with a second violent earthquake on 12 May, it left behind a total of over 9000 dead and 17,000 injured across the 39 districts of the country.

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Some of the devastation caused by the earthquake in Nepal.

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We immediately contacted the new apostolic vicar, Mgr. Paul Simick and offered our help. But the political situation has made his task anything but easy. First of all the central civil government immediately laid its hands on all financial aid from abroad, in order to ‘better manage and coordinate’ the humanitarian aid. In these conditions it wasn’t possible for Mgr. Paul to submit specific projects to us for the reconstruction of chapels, convents or other buildings belonging to the vicariate. Instead, Caritas Nepal was able to take charge of the most essential aid.

But the Indian embargo on fuel and foodstuffs, in retaliation for the adoption of the new constitution on 20 September 2015 (which in India’s view did not take sufficient account of the demands of the Madhesis, an ethnic group closely tied to India) only brought still further suffering to the people.

His vicar general, whom we recently met in Delhi, confirmed for us the complexity of the situation, above all during the winter months, when very little reconstruction work could be carried out.

We reiterated to him our willingness to help his country, an offer he has promised to pass on again. The final lifting of the blockade, very recently, will perhaps make it possible to bring some change to the situation.

Mgr Paul and his vicar general are asking our benefactors not to forget the people of Nepal in their prayers.

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BANGLADESH e funded some 30 projects or so in Bangladesh during 2015. In addition to the Mass stipends, which are essential for the support of the clergy in all the dioceses, we mainly helped for the construction or enlargement of churches and presbyteries. We also devoted a considerable part of the donations entrusted to us in responding to the appeals from the various bishops of the country for the formation of their major seminarians, or for the novices of the female congregations. Nor did we forget the ongoing formation of priests and religious sisters.

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Thanks to ACN’s help, the young deacons of the major seminary in Dhaka were given brand-new breviaries, and the bishops’ Committee for the Family was able to put the finishing touches to a three-year pastoral plan. Finally, a group of around 20 young people will now be able to take part in the World Youth Day in Cracow in 2016.

Without the help of our benefactors, the coordinator of the commission would never have been able to get together the necessary funds for this event, which is something quite exceptional in the life of these young Christians, who represent such a small minority in their own country.

The past year 2015 witnessed a resurgence of violence against the Christian minority, with some attacks of a kind never before seen in this country. For example, the armed attack one November morning on Father Parolari, an Italian PIME missionary. Seri-

ously wounded in the head, he was first of all operated on in Dhaka and later flown back to Italy. Nothing will ever erase the trauma suffered by this man or by the entire Catholic community. Some Protestant pastors have also received death threats from islamist groups, and a number of intellectuals who have spoken out for the rights of the secular state have been murdered in cold blood in the streets.

Bishop Sebastien Tudu of Dinajpur, the diocese where Father Parolari worked, has told us that they are soon going to need police protection whenever they travel. Already the missionaries have been ordered, wherever possible, not to travel alone. The Christian communities are living in a state of tension and Bishop Tudu has asked us especially to pray for his country and for the diocese of Dinajpur.

Bishop Moses M. Costa C.S.C. Bishop of Chittagong in Bangladesh.

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SRI LANKA he main event in the country during 2015, and in particular for the Catholic community, was the visit to the island by Pope Francis. There were two key dates – 8 January 2015, the elections for the presidency, and on 13 January the arrival of the Pope in Sri Lanka. The papal visit, which some people had thought hazardous owing to the imminence of a highly politicised election, actually proved to be a resounding success and at the same time a tremendous opportunity to finally open up a pathway of genuine reconciliation.

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The defeat of the former president, who had been leading his country towards an ever more hardline dictatorship, and the relief and the hope placed in Mr Sirinsena, his successor, have taken great a weight off the hearts of the Sri Lankan people. The welcome given to the Pope was tremendous,

filled with fervour, joy and hope. The Holy Father was entirely in tune with this powerful longing for peace and was able to extend a bridge of friendship towards that section of the Buddhist community that had been hostile to his visit, and at the same time towards the traumatised Tamil minority.

The Pope, in visiting the shrine of Madhu in the north of the island to reflect and to pray for peace, also made a short detour to the interior of the diocese of Mannar, where he was able to talk informally with the families of Tamil victims of the civil war.

The canonisation of Blessed Joseph Vaz, the apostle of Sri Lanka, was undoubtedly the central focus of his visit. In his homily to the Catholic community and to the clergy, the Holy Father emphasised the need to work for the healing of memory which is so vital to overcoming the wounds and injustices of the past. He urged all Sri Lankans, and Catholics in particular, to commit them-

Sri Lankans in traditional dress await the Holy Father.

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selves to the path of tolerance, humility and compassion in the face of ‘the other’ and to be bearers of the Good News of Christ.

The bishops of Jaffna and Trincomalee submitted their resignation on the grounds of age, and their successors have already been appointed. Bishop Joseph of Mannar has also been obliged to submit his resignation owing to his failing health.

For the time being an apostolic administrator is holding the reins of the diocese.

However, all eyes are on the new government administration which, under the new president, is effectively taking decisions and resolutions in the direction of reconciliation and social cohesion (to give one example, for the first time since the war, the Tamils were permitted on 18 May last year to publicly honour their relatives who disappeared during the fighting).

This year ACN’s aid for Sri Lanka enabled the funding of some 47 projects, including the rebuilding or finishing work on pastoral and Biblical centres, the renovation of the national propedeutic seminary and the rebuilding of churches in the north. In addition to supplying Mass intentions, we helped for the training of seminarians and the ongoing formation of priests. Some of these were able to travel abroad to complete their higher studies. The ongoing formation of the laity and of young people was not forgotten either, nor were the individual programmes of various types of pastoral formation.

INDIA hat can one say about this beautiful and vast subcontinent, since the election in May 2014 of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ultranationalist Hindu BJP party? Only that the largest democracy in the world is suffering from a climate of institutional intolerance and exactions – local and targeted – against the minorities and in particular against Christians; and against the Catholic Church. In fact there are some 3 to 4 anti-Christian incidents recorded every day in the states of India as a whole.

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They include the constant administrative trickery faced when attempting to obtain permits to construct or enlarge religious buildings (it can take months – above all if one refuses to pay backhanders); priests teaching in Catholic schools may no longer be addressed as ‘Father’ but only as ‘Mr’; there are hundreds of legal proceedings taking place over unfounded challenges to Church property rights; foreign missionaries can no longer obtain visas and, worse still, their visas are not being renewed, even after decades spent working in the country; the fiscal authorities are becoming extremely difficult about the renewal of bank accounts that can accept payments of foreign currency, etc.

But at the same time physical attacks against Christians are also on the increase in many Indian states, and the attempts to intimidate priests and, sadly, two cases of

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the rape of religious sisters, in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, underline the gravity of the situation and the urgent need for an international reaction. For these are not isolated incidents. Instead this hostile climate is no more than the translation into practice of the ideals propagated by the BJP and its allies, the RSS, of forming a nation that is exclusively Hindu and in which the hatred of other faiths and their elimination are being systematically pursued.

Will the federal anti-conversion law actually happen? The secular character of the Indian constitution is in great danger. This is something moreover that has already been very well realised by a number of intellectuals and writers, who have mobilised on

Formation 40 Major Seminarians at Holy Trinity Major Seminary, Nadipalli, Missionaries of Faith, India

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a number of occasions to denounce the fanaticism of the central government (and of certain regional governments). Some of them have even paid with their lives for their public denunciation of this climate of fear that has been stirred up by unprecedented violence.

Our journey to Chhattisgarh in fact enabled us to get a sense of this feeling of insecurity.

It is here that the Church has placed herself at the service of the indigenous peoples and given protection and her own voice to the ‘voiceless’. In this state, governed by the BJP and subject to a very strict anti-conversion law, we were able to see for ourselves the desire for modernisation by the local government, with construction work everywhere, entire new suburbs being built in the towns, a road network and secondary roads all under development and generous support for the mining industries…

But in all this what is the place allotted to the various tribal peoples? What rights do they have to remain on lands they have occupied for centuries (but without any official written documents) in the face of the national, and multinational, companies who have moved in in such a big way? The Church is fighting by their side and defending their rights in the courts. The threats rain in on all sides, and fear is everywhere in the communities. Nonetheless, the pastoral and social work continues, and many people are turning to the welcome, the spiritual strength and faith in the Good News professed by the Church.

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But the year was also peppered with ‘homecoming celebrations’ organised in some villages by Hindu fundamentalists for the ‘reconversion’ of Christian or Muslim families to the ‘true religion’. Yet despite all this, we continue to help for the construction and repair of presbyteries, convents and churches. We also helped the dioceses for the pastoral formation of the dalits (formerly the ‘untouchables’), funded the purchase of host baking machinery for contemplative religious sisters and helped the bishops with considerable financial support in the form of Mass intentions.

In 2016 we will be travelling to Madhya Pradesh, together with the new head of the Asia III section covering central and southern India. A further visit to India is also in the pipeline.

Once again this year, through the missionaries we met, the catechists and the families with whom we spoke, the whole of the local church has expressed its profound and sincere gratitude to the benefactors of ACN. With us and through us they are contributing to the spread of the Gospel and the hope of Salvation, to the very ends of the earth. And I for my part want to thank every one of you for your constant financial and spiritual support. Without you many vital and essential projects would never see the light of day. Thank you!

• Little girl reading the Child’s Bible, Tiruchirapalli, India.

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WESTERN EUROPE/REFUGEES Peter Humeniuk he project requests submitted to the Western Europe / Refugees section during 2015 were once again comparable with those of the previous year. Individual bishops‘ conferences and individual bishops of the ‘Western world’ continue to approach us, as do other project partners. Often the requests for support are submitted initially to the directors of the national offices and then forwarded to our section.

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Once again the following types of project were supported: 1 For the contemplative life (in Western Europe, including Poland) 2 Support for seminaries (Haarlem, Netherlands, Redemptoris Mater in Berlin and Denmark) 3 Pro Life projects (family apostolate, diocese of Breda) 4 Media and/or publications (various radio stations, Kath.net, Zenit, Bonifatius-TV etc.)

5 The Greek-Catholic Church (France, Italy, Portugal, inter alia) 6 Organisations, congresses and other events for the new evangelisation 7 For Chaldean refugees in France (Baupreau, Sarcelles and Arnouville) and in Sweden (Sördetälje) 8 The Fazendas, Germany 9 Individual movements (e.g. Emmanuel, Shalom, Familie Mariens, Opus Dei, etc.)

10 Various individual projects in the donor countries, in close collaboration and consultation with the national directors.

Chaldean Priest, Fr. Douglas Bazi, with a group of children.

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11 Projects in connection with the forthcoming World Youth Day in Cracow.

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The main focus of our support in Western Europe remains the new evangelisation. Added to this in 2015 has been the highly charged issue of the refugees and asylum seekers in Western Europe. The at times chaotic conditions surrounding their arrival have on occasions led to the absurd situation whereby Christian refugees find themselves a minority in the reception camps, occasionally subjected to attacks and discrimination.

It also raises the urgent question as to a pastoral outreach in the appropriate languages, and also the possibility of supporting this group, for example with religious literature and other forms of practical aid. It is also not yet altogether clear what measures will be taken by the respective bishops‘ conferences. In this connection we might point to the possibility of cooperation with Professor Troll, who in addition to engaging in dialogue with Muslims also helps converts from Islam.

The whole issue of refugees, and the question as to what meaningful contribution ACN can make here, in close cooperation with the national directors, will undoubtedly occupy us once again in 2016. •

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SCHOLARSHIPS SECTION Peter Rettig adly, the number of current scholarships declined over the period of this report. However, the number of newly awarded scholarships remained the same, as did the number of requests rejected. We scarcely receive any more requests from Eastern Europe. But when we can help, this help is of central importance (see below).

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We would gladly do more to help, but unfortunately many requests are often so vaguely formulated that we cannot identify to what extent the leaders of the local churches have actually thought about the implementation of the project and are in fact willing afterwards to entrust the duties mentioned in the request to the student concerned.

Just as a church is in no sense fully completed when the roof we have paid for has

been covered over and the report submitted, so no scholarship ends with the final instalment or the diploma.

A scholarship project is only successful if the student returns to his home church and actually teaches in a seminary, a theological faculty, a novitiate or an interregional catechetical centre, inspiring the next generation with missionary zeal and theological passion. The fact that some bishops were once our scholarship holders is a particular reason for satisfaction.

Each request is an individual one; many are like one piece of a jigsaw among others and some illuminate the situation of a particular country like a beacon. A few examples may help to illustrate this:

Ordination Mass, Belarus.

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Eastern Europe

Asia

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wo sisters are receiving scholarships from us. I know both of them personally and both left a deep impression on me.

One of the sisters is studying psychology at the and is already engaged, during her end of term holidays, in a fruitful apostolate in Belarus for the support people with alcohol and drug problems. She is training the priests who are helping young people with alcohol problems – and there are far too many of these in Belarus – to find a way out of their dependency and open themselves to God. At the same time she supports those in charge of priestly formation in their duties.

The other sister comes from Armenia and is studying in Belgium. We know from other Armenian students in the past just how difficult the path of the ecumenism is and just what gulfs separate the Armenian Church from the Latin Church. Hence we are all the more pleased to see that this sister is carefully studying the Western Church and its theology. We are hoping that the little grain of mustard that is being prepared here will bear rich fruit and help to allay many fears.

She has no problem with her studies, but only with people in the streets. Needless to say, she wears her habit, as she does at home – a black habit which also covers her hair. As a result she is sometimes taken for a Muslim fundamentalist and treated with hostility in the street.

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nother interesting student we are currently supporting is from the Middle East. For a non-Christian, his situation would be hopeless, but as a Christian he is studying in the hope of peace in Syria. Because his brothers and sisters (both Christians and Muslims of goodwill) still need him urgently, he asked us last year if he could postpone his scholarship. Just when he will be able to use his knowledge for reconstruction, and how, our Lord alone knows. We are praying that it will be soon.

With other students the background is nowhere near so dramatic, but nonetheless illuminating regarding the local situation. One student is studying canon law in order to decide on marriage questions in a Church tribunal. In his local church and culture the faithful are still deeply torn between the Christian faith and their deeply ingrained, ancient pre-Christian traditions.

Making judgements in such cases is correspondingly difficult.

In other instances the studies supported by us help to strengthen the identity of an Eastern Church in communion with Rome, as for example in the case of a student of Eastern Liturgy. Sometimes these studies can have an unexpectedly broad regional impact, when the fruits they bring are felt not only in India, for example (as the home country/country of origin?), But even as far afield as the Gulf States and Africa.

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Latin America

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ith great joy, and in the hope for a free Cuba, we are supporting a sister who is preparing to work as a formator for the new vocations. Her task will not be easy, for there are many psychological problems to cope with.

Africa

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e were particularly impressed by a priest from northern Nigeria. He is the only Christian in his family and he is preparing in his studies to engage in dialogue with Muslims. When asked if dialogue is in fact possible, he merely said yes.

Asked what qualities a Christian must have for this dialogue, he replied: humility and profound knowledge. Asked whether, in the face of the Muslim superiority complex, humility would send out the right signals, the answer was: humility, not as servility, but humility that comes from a powerful witness to faith and a profound knowledge of the faith. That, in his view, is what is lacking in the West.

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Catholic Men in mission

by Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted.

Read online at www.acnireland.org.

For a hard copy please contact the ACN office (details on backpage).

A donation whilst not necessary would be a blessing.

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MASS STIPENDS

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Fr. Andrzej Halemba

appily, the number of Mass Intentions we were able to pass on during 2015 to priests all over the world has risen again. There was an increase of 212,317 Mass Stipends as compared with the previous year, so that in all we were able to pass on 1,431,380 Mass Intentions. That equates on average to 3921 Holy Masses celebrated each day for the intentions of our benefactors. In so doing we were able to support 43,203 priests, of whom 1,213 are working in seminaries, responsible for the formation of our future priests, as well as 6,662 religious priests belonging to 93 different congregations. Therefore during 2015 ACN was able to support one priest in every nine around the world with Mass Stipends.

This overall total of Mass Stipends can be broken down as follows: ‘Normal’ Masses 1,167,204 (missae ordinariae) Triduum Masses 6,645 Novenas 10,934 Gregorian Masses 4,811 Sung Masses 1,505 With the exception of the sung Masses, there was an increase in the number of Mass Stipends for all the other forms of Mass Intentions.

Of these Mass Intentions 42.22% went to Africa, 26.09% to Asia, 15.57% to Latin America, 14.33% to Eastern Europe and 1.79% to Western Europe.

Continent Euros % Africa 4,954,848.00 42.22% Asia 3,061,942.00 26.09% East and West Europe 1,892,199.50 16.12% Latin America 1,827,016.14 15.57% Total 11,736,005.64 100.00% A total of €11,735,356.95 was given for Mass Stipends. Benefactors in France gave €2,622,795.74, thus putting France in first place followed by Spain with €909,159.41 and the UK with €900,190.35.

Mass Stipends for 24 Priests, Bosra, Syria.

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Below are some examples of projects describing the general situation of how the Church in that region concerned, lives.

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Nigeria he diocese of Maiduguri has been severely tried in recent years. Situated in northeast Nigeria, this region has suffered most from the violence of the terrorist Boko Haram group. Since 2009 some 100,000 people in the diocese have been forced to flee. Over 5,000 Catholics were murdered, while many Church properties including churches, schools and hospitals were destroyed. Towards the end of 2014, Bishop Dashe Doeme had a remarkable experience.

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As he was praying in his chapel, saying the Rosary in front of the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus appeared before him. Without speaking, he handed the bishop a sword.

As he stretched out to take it, the sword turned to a rosary in his hand. Then Jesus said to him, three times: ‘Boko Haram has gone’. Later, the bishop explained ‘It was clear to me that with the Rosary we could drive out Boko Haram.’ At first he did not want to say anything about this experience, but then he felt himself impelled to do so by the Holy Spirit. He spoke first of all to the priests in his diocese about his experience.

A few months later, the situation indeed began to improve. Last spring a section of the Nigerian army, together with troops from Chad and Cameroon, were able to win back some of the towns and villages occupied by Boko Haram. Following this, some of the refugees were able to return to their homes.

Now the people have to rebuild their lives. In celebrating Masses of reconciliation and reparation, Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme is encouraging them to remain steadfast in their faith, despite the suffering they have endured. He is also calling on them to follow the example of Christ and forgive the terrorists. The people must not be led astray by thoughts of revenge, he tells them, for revenge and retaliation ultimately only lead to a vicious spiral of violence and warfare.

The bishop is convinced that healing can only be possible if the Catholic faithful forgive what is past and look towards the future with great hope and trust. Last year, during Easter week, Bishop Dashe Doeme visited a number of the parishes in his diocese. He reports: ‘The longing of the faithful for prayer and confession was great.’ In many of these communities the bishop and the priests accompanying him, spent over three hours in the confessional, administering the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Now more than ever, priests are needed to drive forward the process of healing and forgiveness. The sacraments and pastoral support are more than ever necessary. But many of the priests have themselves gone through terrible experiences. Almost half the priests of the diocese of Maiduguri were themselves forced to flee from Boko Haram and they are now left with nothing. During 2015 ACN therefore passed on Mass Intentions to the value of €30,000 for the 69 priests of the diocese.

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India

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he 23 Jesuit Fathers who minister pastorally to the tea plantation workers in Assam received 900 Mass Stipends from our benefactors last year, for a total of €7,200. With this help they are able to continue their precious apostolate among these disadvantaged people.

The state of Assam in Northeast India is the largest single tea growing area in the world. Millions of people live and labour on the plantations for a mere pittance. Most can neither read nor write and they are frequently exploited. The parents work from early morning till late in the evening on the plantations. They barely have time to care for their children and since they themselves have had no formal schooling, they do not send their children to school either.

The Jesuit Fathers have made it their mission to give these children a better future.

‘I have been working here for 18 years now. From the very first day I witnessed the

misery in which the people live. The key to a better future lies in a better school education. We are trying to persuade the parents to send their children to school’, says Father Xavier Lakra.

But in fact many of the adults themselves are also learning to read and write thanks to the hard work and commitment of the Jesuits. ‘Until recently they couldn‘t even write their own names and had to sign documents with their fingerprint –as a result they were often cheated and exploited. By now many of them have learned to read and write and as a result, they are no longer so helplessly exposed to exploitation.’

But above all it is pastoral support that the people need. They love the Church and have a deep sense of piety. But they need to develop the feeling that as children of God they have a true innate dignity, for they often feel themselves to be worthless since they are on the very bottom rung of society.

Hence, conveying the love of God to them is a vital task.

Missae Ordinariae for 31 diocesan & 83 religious priests working in Rajkot Diocese, India (for 2015).

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Azerbaijan

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hristianity in Azerbaijan in fact has very ancient roots going right back to the time of the Gospel. Although 90 to 95% of the population are Muslims today, 70 years of communism have created a situation in which only 20% of Muslims in this former Soviet republic even practise their faith. Christians represent just 3 to 4% of the population and most of these belong to the Russian Orthodox Church.

There are only around 400 Catholics in the country, around 300 of them natives of the country itself while the remaining 100 or so are foreigners living and working there.

There is just one single Catholic parish, that of Mary Immaculate in Baku. Every year an average of around 10 individuals are baptised as Catholics in Azerbaijan. Each Sunday three Holy Masses are celebrated in the parish church. There is a growing interest in catechesis and Church life is developing, slowly but steadily.

An important moment in the life of the Catholic Church in Azerbaijan was the visit there by Pope John Paul II in May 2002.

His presence brought the Catholics into public view once more. At the time, President Alijev granted the Catholics a plot of land on which the new parish church was built and consecrated in 2007. The old Catholic church had been destroyed by the communists in the 1930s, and the parish priest and many of the faithful were murdered. Hence the gift of the

plot of land was also a form of compensation for the destruction of the church during the Stalinist era.

In the year 2012, ten years after the visit of Pope John Paul II, a pastoral centre was opened in the capital Baku with the support of ACN. It was blessed by Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the prefect of the congregation for the evangelisation of peoples.

During the ceremony, he expressed the desire that the Church in Azerbaijan should become a ‘Church in mission’ and pray for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, work for the family as the basic cell of society and of the Church, and seek to awaken the spirit of the apostolate among the laity also. At the same time, however, he said: ‘I know well that your work is not easy. You are living in an ocean of non-Christians where the culture, the mentality and ways do not always correspond to our perceptions.’

The apostolic prefecture of Baku is headed by the Slovakian Salesian Father Vladimir Fekete. Each year he asks our help for the seven priests of his prefecture. We have sent him €4,800 for Mass Stipends, so that he can support his priests. They are very grateful for this help and celebrate these Holy Masses for the intentions of the benefactors.

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Year 2015

Mass stipends given – as a percentage of the total

Number of priests receiving Mass Stipends from ACN

Percentage of all priests supported by ACN worldwide

Africa (excluding Egypt)

41.52%

13,716

31.75%

Asia (excluding Middle East)

23.73%

13,740

31.80%

East and Western Europe

16.22%

10,204

23.61%

Latin America

15.57%

4,853

11.23%

Middle East

2.96%

690

1.60%

Total

100.00%

43,203

100.00%

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Total number of priests worldwide (source: Agenzia Fides, October 2015): 415,348.

ACN supported one priest in every nine worldwide with Mass Stipends.

Type of Mass

Number celebrated

Total of individual Masses celebrated

Missa ordinaria

1,167,204

1,167,204

Gregoriana

4,811 144,330

Novena

10,934 98,406

Tridua

6,645 19,935

Cantata

1,505 1,505

Total Total of Masses in 2015: 1,431,380

In other words, 3,921 Masses were celebrated each day in 2015 for the intentions of ACN‘s benefactors.

1,431,380

Number of priests teaching at seminaries supported: 1,213.

Number of religious priests supported: 6,662 from 93 different congregations.

In other words, Holy Mass was celebrated every 22 seconds for the intentions of our benefactors.

8 Egypt; Bahrain; Iran; Iraq; Jordan; Katar; Kuwait; Lebanon; Palestine; Saudi Arabia; Syria; Turkey; United Arab Emirates (UAE).

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Africa I 21.050,00 Africa Ii 99.645,00 Africa Iii 92.860,00 Asia-Africa 12.000,00 Latin America I 8.000,00 Latin America Ii 21.472,00 Albania 4.960,00 Algeria 3.402,00 Angola 46.000,00 Argentina 223.582,00 Australia 5.040,00 Azerbaijan 4.480,00 Bangladesh 114.348,00 Belarus 120.700,00 Benin 59.500,00 Bolivia 68.004,00 Brazil 314.957,15 Bulgaria 24.000,00 Burkina Faso 124.183,00 Burundi 64.240,00 Cameroon 174.340,00 Central African Republic 137.600,00 Chad 52.800,00 Chile 30.414,00 China 89.600,00 Colombia 186.270,00 Congo 93.680,00 Costa Rica 4.800,00 Cuba 127.326,00 Czech Republic 46.400,00

Dem.rep. Congo 972.665,00 Dominican Republic 4.800,00 Ecuador 26.560,00 Egypt 81.600,00 El Salvador 16.720,00 Eritrea 30.000,00 Ethiopia 161.600,00 Ghana 83.560,00 Guatemala 11.200,00 Guinea-Conakry 19.600,00 Haiti 166.475,00 Honduras 8.000,00 Hungary 44.160,00 India 1.913.254,00 Indonesia 52.800,00 Iran 2.400,00 Iraq 10.320,00 Israel 1.200,00 Ivory Coast 86.980,00 Kazakhstan 40.800,00 Kenya 182.292,00 Kiribati 18.400,00 Lebanon 136.800,00 Liberia 61.200,00 Lithuania 6.400,00 Madagascar 314.750,00 Malawi 82.640,00 Mali 45.000,00 Mauritania 5.832,00 Mexico 40.160,00 Moldova 16.000,00

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Morocco 21.920,00 Mozambique 115.845,00 Myanmar 176.800,00 Namibia 8.000,00 Nepal 24.000,00 Nicaragua 29.900,00 Niger 6.400,00 Nigeria 255.820,00 Pakistan 18.340,00 Panama 2.400,00 Papua-New Guinea 90.600,00 Paraguay 124.919,00 Peru 291.617,00 Solomon Islands 11.200,00 Sudan 29.200,00 Syria 110.320,00 Tanzania 523.640,00 Togo 17.600,00 Turkey 4.200,00 Uganda 269.079,00 Ukraine 1.057.679,00 United Kingdom 2.062,50 Uruguay 75.600,00 Uzbekistan 8.000,00 Venezuela 43.840,00 Vietnam 28.000,00 Zambia 178.761,00 Zimbabwe 130.930,00

Total 11.736.005,65

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COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT Mark von Riedemann

n a 1965 article for Electronics magazine Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors that fit on a silicon chip would double every two years leading to extraordinarily fast growth in computing power. A little more than 50 years later ‘Moore’s Law’ still holds true: a USB stick is more powerful than the computers that put man on the moon.

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Scientist and author Ray Kurzweil writes: ‘It took us half a century to adopt the telephone. Television and radio were adopted in decades. Recent technologies - like the PC, the web, cell phones - were under a decade … Five to 10 years from now, search engines will actually be based on not just looking for combinations of words and links but actually understanding, reading for

understanding the billions of pages on the web and in books’. (TED March 2014) It is within this context that ACN Communications finds itself - caught up in the whirl of technological change giving rise to a multiplicity of voices competing for space on a multiplicity of channels. What separates us is that the ACN voice is not our own but that of our project partners - those extraordinary witnesses and messengers testifying to God and His love for mankind.

Our responsibility then is faithfulness to this voice. By placing projects at the core of our communications work - whether through TV, press or social media - our target audience identifies with our project partners and acknowledges ACN as the channel through which to serve the pastoral needs of the suffering and persecuted Church.

Over the last three years, this department has, together with the national offices, worked to develop this global communications strategy - creating the timely and comprehensive content and building the necessary distribution paths to further define ACN as this unique channel.

Sister of the Misioneras de Jeses Verbo y Victima feeding an old women in the Diocese of Ayacucho, Peru.

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To this end, I am grateful for the dedication of the Communications and CRTN teams, the deepening and fruitful cooperation between the Communications and the Projects Departments, as well as with the national offices.

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Project Services

Press

ith the growth in the number of new offices as well as the impact of fundamentalist violence, the demands on the Services section increased markedly over 2015. The consequences of war in the Middle East as well as natural disasters and political conflicts in Africa and India propelled a growing interest in - and trend towards - emergency relief and or ‘humanitarian’ projects.

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n 2015 the Press team prepared 44 Features, 8 Interviews, 99 ACN News and 31 other kinds of reports. In cooperation with Services the Press section prepared quarterly dossiers including all current projects in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. A new initiative was the development of a section for ‘small stories’ - topical, emotive and with good pictures.

With the ACN global project budget dedicated to responding to emergency relief climbing from about 15% of total projects to over 20% today, the consequent influx of requests particularly from foundations and individual major donors seeking social rather than the normal pastoraloriented projects meant that demand was greater than supply often obliging creative repackaging.

Although the lack of personnel in the department due to leave or sickness was a challenge this lead us to an increased and improved cooperation with the national offices. Even if the news idea originated here, national office journalists supported us through conducting interviews and editing the information. We would like to thank the offices for their support and their work for the global organisation.

A growth in the number of foundations also led to a marked difference in the amount and kind of reporting required. Individual donors and parishes sharing ACN’s Catholic vision and mission facilitates a certain trust in the reporting – rigorous but understanding of the often difficult conditions experienced by the project partner. NonCatholic foundations / major donors and those donors interested in purely social projects tend to be less forgiving obliging pages of detailed reporting and accounting of individual invoices and in some cases, salaries of Bishops.

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Priests saying mass in Cremisan Calley, Palestine, August 2015.

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Photos

Digital Communication

he photographer’s aphorism ‘the photograph is never taken—it is always given’ is never more applicable than when seeking to communicate suffering. In a matter of moments the photographer must approach, earn trust and capture truth. The truth of this medium places it at the heart of all ACN communications. In 2015 the Photo Archive continued to respond to the growing national office needs which totalled over 643 requests preparing over 4,889 print files.

ocial Media serves to connect and engage, inspiring a digital subscriber to become an ACN advocate and ambassador and finally an active and committed benefactor. Our 2015 digital and social media communication strategy continued to: Integrate new multimedia tools, create an ACN Königstein and national office working group, implement a social media calendar, deepen contact with the Project Department for stories, and coordinate efforts with the national offices for a cooperative and unified approach.

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Concurrent to this the department continues to select, refine, credit and upload images to the iPIC which today totals over 51,165 photos. Equally important is an improvement in the quality of images. In 2015 department purchased a selection of papal photographs as well as a further assortment of strong images with international copyright.

Text Archive ith the final categorisation and archiving of ACN historical files by Mijo Jozic at the end of 2015 those who serve as a ‘memory’ of ACN come slowly to a close. This lends urgency to the work of the Text Archive team to select, digitize and upload to iPIC the most historically relevant documentation available for national office needs. I extend my gratitude to Mijo for his years of service.

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The powerful project partner testimonies and thank you messages, photographs, infographics and short videos and the greater Königstein - national offices cooperation facilitated the production of six major global prayers campaigns related to current events such as the general elections in Nigeria, the ongoing war in Syria, for the release of Father Jacques Mourad and for the Pope’s visit to the Central African Republic. Each campaign sought to raise awareness about the situation of suffering Christians and to unite Catholics throughout the world through prayer in line with ACN’s 3 main pillars: prayer, information, action.

Three examples are highlighted here:

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ANNUAL REPORT 2015

February 2015: A Week of Prayer for peace in Nigeria

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eneral elections in Nigeria – a new president and a new parliament were scheduled on 14 February 2015. Subsequent to the violence following the last general election, (in April 2011, over 3 days of rioting, more than 800 were people killed and 65,000 displaced) the local

precarious transition which could have destabilized the country, showed statesmanship by conceding defeat even before the final results were officially declared.

This was the fruit of prayer.’

Way of the Cross for Syria in Lent 2015 ith Syria entering its 5th year of civil war, ACN initiated a 14-day Way of the Cross Lenten campaign for Syria ending on Good Friday, April 3rd.

Banners and infographics were created and posted daily in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian with ACN photos and a corresponding text written by the Episcopal Commission for the Family in Syria (Archbishop Samir Nassar of Damascus) for Facebook. Twitter hashtags included #SyriaPrayer and #StopSyriaWar. Among a number of outlets, the Canadian Bishops’ Conference ran the campaign as did the religion supplement of one of Spain’s main newspapers, Alfa Y Omega.

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Church encouraged ACN’s call to for peace.

The ACN International - national office campaign ran on ACN International’s Facebook page with a call to prayer promoted on ACN International and national office Facebook and Twitter accounts (hashtags #2015NigeriaPrayer #PrayerWeekNigeria).

The impact of this type of campaign is difficult to measure but Bishop Oliver Doeme Dash of Maiduguri speaking to Members of the European Parliament at a private meeting arranged by ACN in May 2015, acknowledged that: ‘The elections were unexpectedly peaceful. The massive turnout at the polling stations was a clear indication that the people wanted change. The outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan, in a moment of

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BEING GOD’S MERCY

Prayer for the liberation of kidnapped Syrian monk Father Jacques Mourad ather Jaques Mourad, a Catholic monk and ACN project partner, was kidnapped on 21 May 2015.

In collaboration with the national offices, ACN International launched a prayer action on Sunday 21 June asking benefactors and friends to support Father Mourad. An existing hashtag was used for this prayer campaign (#PrayingForFatherMourad), as well as a Facebook page created by a British benefactor.

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Father Mourad was released on October 10 and in a letter to Father Andrzej Halemba wrote: ‘The humanitarian work that we were able to carry out beforehand, thanks to your help … and all the various different forms of aid all contributed in some way to the miracle of my liberation and to my return to life. Thanks to the good reports of people who benefited from these gestures of solidarity, the doors of mercy were reopened, and the part of life and freedom was presented before me once again. For all these things, and together with you, I give thanks to God with all my heart. This experience has confirmed me in my mission, as it has you in yours.’

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Media Monitoring ith the introduction of Meltwater News as a media monitoring resource in late 2014, the system has proven valuable enabling an overview of the international and local media presence.

In 2015 ACN International, once the system structure was in place and proven, signed a new contract with Meltwater allowing the opening of national accounts (each with local support) enabling the offices to track local media responses as well as specific media analysis to individual campaigns.

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The graph below indicates the number of hits per country over 2015 (the most frequent users of ACN news were Catholic press agencies - normal and healthy with their spread to Catholic publications).

Naturally the statistics are dependent on the number of agencies in the system and together with the national offices we are working to update the sources, however, it provides an insight to the ACN media impact in a given landscape.

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ANNUAL REPORT 2015

Catholic Radio and Television Network (CRTN) RTN productions are oriented towards two goals: broadcast quality documentaries which seek to evangelize, tell the story of the suffering Church (and so solidarity with), and raise awareness of ACN activities, and those productions which are more explicitly geared to ACN information and fundraising needs such as weekly interview programs and short formats.

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2015 saw the continued production of 52 weekly Where God Weeps and Donde Dios Llora interview programs for both TV and radio programs as well as 7 documentaries in four languages. Significant in 2015 was the increased production in shorter ACN fundraising programs which reached a record 25 for TV and national office digital communications also in four languages.

The quality of CRTN documentary production is reflected in the growing number of TV networks requesting our programming. In 2015 CRTN renewed existing or established new broadcasting arrangements with 62 Catholic TV’s worldwide: 27 TV networks where ACN national offices are present (with a view to partnership relationships: for example where office contact address is indicated and / or with direct appeals prior to or following broadcast) and an additional 35 Catholic and state TV networks in 19 countries outside of those represented by national offices including in India, Croatia, Czech

Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Trinidad-Tobago as well as networks in Russia and Latin America.

Over time the Where God Weeps broadcast too has grown, today on 8 Catholic TV networks in 5 countries and Donde Dios Llora to 6 Catholic TV networks in 19 countries.

This is not to forget the WGW and DDL spin-off radio productions where CRTN is broadcasting on over 100 English and Spanish Catholic radio networks principally in the USA and Canada.

The potential to tell the story of the suffering Church – so that they are not isolated in their suffering – and communicate the work of ACN is unprecedented.

With the inability to fundraise directly on Catholic TV (the networks evidently resistant to external organisations ‘fishing in their donor ponds’), with the accord of ACN USA though under the auspices and responsibility of CRTN, a test effort was implemented addressing the Hispanic community in the USA with a Direct TV Fund raising campaign: a combination of a 30 minute Infomercial complemented with 60 second spots placed on purchased airtime on targeted commercial Hispanic TV networks across the USA. Although the effort garnered both donor interest and income, whether the market, product or message, the donations were insufficient to offset the costs.

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Advocacy uilding up on achievements from the preceding year, in 2015 the suffering Church was the object of growing attention from the part of EU representatives. Over the year ACN arranged 43 concrete actions including arranging 17 speakers (ACN project partners) for European Parliament events on a variety of topics including 12 focused on Iraq, 10 on Syria, as well as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt and Lebanon.

ACN was invited by Members of the European Parliament to the UK and to Poland to present ‘Persecuted and Forgotten?’ during European Christian Democrats and the Conservatives conferences.

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ACN also arranged the travel of several EU representatives to Iraq in ACN developed programs: twice for the Hungarian MEP Gyorgy Holvenyi, once for the Swedish MEP Lars Adaktusson and once for the Belgian Bishops’ Conference.

These Brussels-based actions led, at the end of the year, to an important push to the worldwide effort to start referring formally to the persecution of Christians as an ongoing Genocide. 2016 saw the concretization of these activities with the adoption at the European Parliament and US Congress of a resolution in this sense.

Among the many outcomes ACN had the grace to witness, we would like to mention one in particular when the European Parliament President Martin Schultz addressed a conference on Persecuted Christians (in which ACN presented the ‘Persecuted and Forgotten?’ and brought two witnesses) that: ‘…for a long time we have assumed Christians did not need protection, but I have learnt over the years I am wrong. The European Parliament will do everything within its power so that Christian can live in peace’.

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Vehicle Ford Ranger pick-up in favour of St Thomas’ Aquinas Church, Kalembe, Malawi.

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YOUCAT The YOUCAT, an abbreviation of Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church, is a version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that is specifically tailored in language, presentation and format towards the youth of the Catholic faith.

Originally published in 2011, the year of World Youth Day in Madrid, it was created in order to meaningfully engage with Catholic youth that they may better understand and defend their faith.

The YOUCAT book is truly a global publication and is available in over 30 languages.

youcat.org

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