Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Madrid (Agenzia Fides) - In the year 2006 the Catholic aid agency Aid to the Church in Need received more than 81 million Euro in donations, 10% more than in the previous year, according to a recent ACN Report. In a letter to collaborators and benefactors ANC international president Hans-Peter Röthlin and ACN Spain director Javier Menéndez Ros, write that "2006 was a good year. Figures speak but they cannot measure your love " which funded almost 5,100 projects in parishes and dioceses in 137 different countries.
In Africa, ACN focused on Sudan, Republic of Congo and Angola. The first two still live the consequences of long civil wars and Christians suffer from oppression and discrimination from a greater part of the population; Angola, with war over, needs aid to rebuild church structures destroyed in the fighting.
In Europe, ACN supported projects in Ukraine for 3.8 million Euro, and in Russia for 2.4 to support projects of the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and to give impulse to dialogue between the two confessions. In Europe also important aid was sent to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Other ACN priority countries in 2006 included Cuba, Haiti, China, Myanmar and Vietnam, Pakistan northern Nigeria. In Asia ACN continued to support reconstruction work on churches and parishes damaged by the tsunami.
A good part 29.8 per cent was used for building projects. Mass offerings represent 17,6 per cent of the donations; 16 per cent was used for evangelisation, 14.2 per cent to support basis adult instruction and ongoing formation for priests, religious and lay people; 4 per cent of the donations was used to spread the Children's Bible and the Little I Believe Catechism and other catechetical material.
Funds were also used to support 16,724 seminarians in various parts of the world and to build 537 chapels and churches to have suitable places for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
The Letter says great hope has been born in Poland "after many decades of receiving aid Polish Catholics wish to show solidarity towards the Church in need in the world ". ANC National Office in Poland is the 17th national office and is in already fully active. The Letter concludes with the wish that donations in 2007 will be even more generous not "for us but for the Church in Need ". (RG) (Agenzia Fides 30/6/2007; righe 28, parole 365)
