Aid to the Church in Need

Transcription

The lives of Christians are today threatened in more than 40 countries around the world. As local Churches struggle to celebrate the sacraments, teach the Gospel and strive to give people their dignity, the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need works throughout the world, to help the poor and persecuted Church witness the Faith. Fr. Werenfried van Straaten, a Dutch priest inspired by the commandment to 'love thy neighbour', set himself a seemingly impossible task in 1947 – to support starving German refugees with donations of food, blankets and clothing. And yet, his appeals released a flood of generosity. Where no money was available, people offered food, including bacon – which quickly earned him the name “The Bacon Priest”. Aid to the Church in Need supported a vast number of unique projects, from the purchase of cars and motorcycles to mobilize “backpack priests”, to the construction of chapel trucks, and the training of seminarians behind the Iron Curtain. In 1984, the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy officially recognized the charity as a “Universal Public Association of the Faithful”. Today, Aid to the Church in Need is an international organisation, with offices in 17 countries managing some 10,000 project requests a year, from over 140 countries. Though the Church suffers a crisis of vocations, in some parts of the world thousands of young men hunger to offer their lives to God. For many, it is a difficult journey of suffering, poverty and persecution. Many students pray, sleep and study in one room, often unheated. Here, in one underground seminary in China, up to twelve share one concrete bed. To enable them to answer God’s call to the altar, Aid to the Church in Need supports over fifteen thousand of these future priests around the world. Nonetheless a scarcity of priests and religious has led local bishops to encourage lay leaders and catechists to undertake many of the responsibilities of evangelization. Aid to the Church in Need supports this missionary work, through such programmes as the “Little Evangelizers”, where young adults spend two years bringing a Christian presence to isolated villages – often the first contact villagers have with Christianity. In numerous remote areas – from Asia to Latin America – the simple problem of transportation often determines whether people receive the sacraments, and hear God’s word, or suffer spiritual isolation. Communication media remains the most powerful tool of evangelization. That is why the Church seeks support for media projects, particularly in countries where communicating the Christian message remains vital to the development of democratic institutions. Aid to the Church in Need responds to appeals from Catholics and Orthodox alike, helping them rebuild churches, to provide places of worship for the ever-growing numbers of faithful. Efforts to support the Orthodox are a reflection of the charity’s historical principle of working towards reconciliation. Churches of both traditions, closed for more than fifty years, are now open once more – a sign of Christ rising from the ashes of persecution. Where the people cannot go to the Church, Aid to the Church in Need supports projects that bring the Church to the people. The need to support the Church’s reconstruction is also apparent in another part of the world, though the need here comes from a growing, rather than declining threat. Although its roots are deep, there is an increasing concern – after 2000 years – that the future of Christianity in the Middle East faces a silent, but pervasive danger. Christianity is in effect disappearing – a modern day exodus, the consequence of an ever growing presence and forceful expression of fundamentalist Islam. “Under Communism, I realized that what the world and the Church needed most was prayer,” explains one contemplative Sister: “The most we can do is what we do through prayer”. Aid to the Church in Need helps active and contemplative nuns around the world. Sisters, faithful to their vocation, pray for their benefactors daily. Today, vocations are plentiful, but many nuns remain poor and in need of support. The Bible continues to be the world’s longest running bestseller in publishing history. However, there are countries where millions of children grow up without access to God’s basic teaching. Aid to the Church in Need has printed and distributed more than 48 million copies of The Child's Bible, in over 162 different languages. For many, it is the only book they will ever own. The pastoral support offered by Aid to the Church in Need, does not lie in relieving the immediate after-effects of a disaster, but rather in responding to local Church appeals for material and spiritual help in the aftermath of natural disasters, that so often inflict such a heavy penalty on those who already have so little. This contradiction, this sign of hope amidst grinding poverty is most evident in Africa – a continent of impoverished millions, where over half of the world’s conflicts are fought … … and where the AIDS epidemic is decimating the population. It is indeed here that a sign of hope is most needed, and where Aid to the Church in Need is enabling the religious to persevere: in prayer and action. God promised the Church neither renown nor comfort in this world – a world covered with millions of crosses; a Calvary of our times. Yet, the Cross gives us hope. The vertical beam directs us to God, the source of all love, whilst the horizontal beam, draws from this source and calls upon us to extend this love to all our brothers and sisters. It is the Cross that has guided the pastoral work of Aid to the Church in Need, and the Cross that inspires the love of its benefactors to help those who are unable to carry this Cross alone. As Jesus said, "Whatever you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto Me”.