“I learned ACN is a charity of love”, says outgoing international ecclesiastical assistant

Fr Anton Lässer leaves ACN and will be replaced by Fr Friedrich Bechina, who joins the Papal Foundation after two decades working in the Vatican. “I am coming closer to where the life of the Church is.”

After more than three years, Fr Anton Lässer is stepping down from his position as ecclesiastical assistant to Aid to the Church in Need – International (ACN). The Austrian Fr Anton, 65, was asked by his superiors to return to the service of the Passionist Congregation. As of 1 October, he will be replaced by Fr Friedrich Bechina, 60, who is also Austrian but comes from the The Spiritual Family “The Work”.

The role of the Ecclesiastical Assistant is to foster and strengthen the spiritual life at every level of ACN, to provide spiritual guidance and oversight, to promote ecclesial communion, and to represent the Church and her pastoral authority within the day-to-day life and work of the Foundation. As a Pontifical Foundation, this spiritual and ecclesial dimension is fundamental to ACN’s identity, mission and activity.

As he prepares for his next mission, Fr Anton shared what he learned from his experience.

“When I had the opportunity to come to know ACN from within and began making my first project trips, I was deeply impressed and, at the same time, pleasantly surprised to see how concretely the Church, through ACN, reaches even the most remote areas, offering assistance to alleviate suffering and to bring the salvation found in Christ. I was particularly moved by the steadfast generosity and willingness to help shown by so many of our benefactors, as well as by the personal way in which ACN accompanies its project partners throughout the world.

“Many of our benefactors are not wealthy themselves, and yet they faithfully contribute a small amount each month to support the work of ACN and pray for their suffering brothers and sisters in the faith. This is precisely what makes this charity so special: it is sustained by a love that is rooted in faith and expressed in action – by people who genuinely take the needs and suffering of others to heart,” he explained.

Fr Anton, an Austrian Passionist, emphasises that ACN is far more than a secular non-governmental organisation. “ACN belongs to the Holy See and fulfils its mission by helping the suffering and persecuted Church to carry out her fundamental task: ultimately, to bring Christ and His salvation to people. We are called to be, and desire to remain, a pastoral charity. At its heart, this means cooperating with Christ, the true Good Shepherd. Of course, this is possible only if Christ lives in us; if He does not dwell within us, our efforts will ultimately not bear fruit.

“In this sense, the primary task of ACN’s International Ecclesiastical Assistant and the Ecclesiastical Assistants in the national offices is to foster and safeguard the spiritual life of faith at every level of the charity: among the staff at our international headquarters and in the national offices, among our benefactors, and throughout our project work. Our task is to help them draw ever more deeply from the Word of God, the Holy Eucharist and the other sources of Catholic life, so that they may live and act as true disciples of Christ.”

Among his most profound experiences, he recalls his journey to Ukraine and, more recently, to Russia.

“I encountered children who, because of the trauma they had suffered, were no longer able to speak and who were painting icons as part of their therapy. I met people who had returned from the front gravely wounded, having lost limbs or their sight. I also met a priest who accompanies more than twenty groups of women who have lost their husbands, their children, or both. These encounters made me profoundly aware of the immense destructive power of war and of how it wounds and burdens people for generations, often leaving them deeply scarred in their souls. War is evil through and through, while peace is an immensely precious good. We should pray for it every day with genuine longing.”

Yet equally moving – and something that strengthened his faith anew – was witnessing, in so many places, the extraordinary acts of love and generosity of which the Holy Spirit makes people capable, often precisely in the midst of war or in situations that seem humanly impossible to overcome.

“I remember a community of religious sisters in Lebanon who had taken in 800 refugees at their convent. Day after day, they struggled to provide these people with food and constantly had to find new solutions to the many challenges they faced. Despite getting very little sleep and giving of themselves tirelessly, they were full of ideas and showed remarkable creativity in their love for people who were exhausted and had lost their homes. You could almost see how the Holy Spirit inspired them and enabled them to go beyond what they themselves thought possible. To have been able to witness and share in so many situations like this was, for me, a special grace – deeply edifying and profoundly beautiful.”

“ACN makes the impossible possible”

Fr Friedrich Bechina, who is also Austrian, joins ACN International following two decades of service in the Congregation for Catholic Education (currently the Dicastery of Culture and Education), in Rome. Although he is new to the job of ecclesiastical assistant, he has known and worked with ACN for years.

“My first encounter with ACN was through my grandparents and my parents, because they were donors. Later, when I worked for the Holy See, I had quite an interesting relationship with the people here, especially the ones involved in projects in education and scholarships, because at the Vatican I worked with higher education, so I had a large network of information and contacts.”

After all this time working at the strategic level, Fr Bechina says “now I get the impression I’m coming closer to where the life of the Church is.”

“I’m coming down from the big strategies, which I still appreciate, because they are so important, but it doesn’t help if on the ground it’s not possible. Now I’m working for an organisation whose primary purpose is to make possible what seems impossible, and this can only happen because there are so many people who believe in it, and who put all their energy, their prayers, their hearts and a lot of money, into this. To be part of this is really very challenging, and it gives me great joy.”

To mark the beginning of his term as ecclesiastical assistant of ACN International, Fr Bechina has a special message for all the benefactors. “Thank you! You are the ones who make this possible. We are living in a world of time and space, and we need resources to give education, to help people to grow in their faith, to build infrastructure where people can worship God.”

“Here at the headquarters of ACN International we are listening to those in need, and in doing so we discover that the Holy Spirit has been there long before us!”