To help mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the international pontifical charity serving the persecuted and suffering Church around the world, is providing €5M ($5.46 million) in emergency funding to priests and nuns caring for the most vulnerable communities around the world.
In the face of increased social distress worldwide due to COVID-19, the initiative will assist religious who lost their basic subsistence so they can continue to carry out their spiritual and social ministries, such as administering the sacraments, teaching the faith, caring for the sick and elderly, helping the poor and visiting prisoners. The intervention will be aimed at the Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa, through project support.
“As a rising tide of human suffering related to COVID-19 makes itself felt around the world, the demand for social and spiritual care is soaring,” said Thomas Heine-Geldern, ACN’s Executive President. “It is our wish that this aid, made possible thanks to our benefactors, will help ease the burden on our courageous religious, who stand on the front lines, bringing God’s love and compassion to our suffering brothers and sisters. Now more than ever, the light and hope of the Lord is needed.”
Countless communities in developing countries — already impoverished and with limited resources — are particularly vulnerable in this crisis, and often they are dependent on the local Church for social services, including health care.
“We are united in prayer with the brave and dedicated priests and nuns who give their all to serve the world’s most vulnerable communities, and with all who are suffering around the world” Heine-Geldern continued. “This is a drop in the bucket in terms of what is and will be needed, but the Church plays a particularly vital spiritual and pastoral role in the day-to-day life of the world’s poorest Christian communities, and we must help strengthen the safety net it provides.”
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