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A vital resources for fostering awareness and understanding of the challenges faced by Christians worldwide
YOUCAT
The YOUCAT Foundation is a subsidiary of ACN. YOUCAT provides Resources for fostering awareness and understanding of the challenges faced by Christians worldwide are also an important part of this mission.
What YOUCAT offers ranges from catechism editions and attractively designed Bible editions, to digital products, including teaching materials, apps and social media channels.
Child’s Bible
The newly revised jubilee edition of the beloved Child’s Bible by Aid to the Church in Need was officially launched! 10,000 copies, with the foreword by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, have already been distributed.
Religious Freedom in the World Report
The ACN report examines the state of religious freedom in 196 countries, runs to nearly 900 pages, and is published in six languages. It is one of four reports on the state of global religious freedom. The others are published by the American Pew Research Center, the U.S. State Department, and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The ACN report is the only non-governmental report in Europe that takes Catholic social doctrine into account
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea is the third largest island nation in the world. In some parts of the country, the Catholic Church has only been present for a few generations. Nevertheless,...
Philippines
The Philippines is the only majority Christian country in Asia. More than 80% of the archipelago’s 109 million inhabitants are Catholic. In 2021, the Church in the Philippines celebrated the...
Indonesia
In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation with 272 million inhabitants, the coexistence of religions has been largely peaceful until now. However, recently there have been increased attacks by conservative...
India
With almost 1.4 billion inhabitants, India has the second largest population in the world. The Hindu majority population often discriminates religious minorities such as Muslims (14.5%) and Christians (4.9%). Church...
Nepal
Nepal is marked by its geographical location in the Himalayan mountains. Many different ethnic groups make up the population. The majority of the 30 million inhabitants are Hindus. About 8,000...
Pakistan
In the Islamic Republic of Republic of Pakistan, 96.4% of the 208 million inhabitants are Muslims. Religious minorities often suffer massive discrimination. The rise of abductions, forced marriages and forced...
Armenia
Armenia, located in the Near Eastern Caucasus region, has been in an armed conflict with Azerbaijan for decades over control in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In 2020, fighting broke out again....
Northern Europe
In Northern Europe, the Catholic Church only has a historically established presence in Lithuania. There, Catholics form the majority at 80% of the population, but the Church is poor and...
Pope Francis’ trip to Iraq
From 5 to 8 March, Pope Francis became the first Pope ever to visit Iraq. The Holy met state delegates and representatives of other religions, but the aim of his...
Syria
Christians have suffered greatly from the effects of the civil war in Syria. It is estimated that only one-third of the 1.5 million Christians who lived in Syria before the...
Lebanon
Lebanon has been going through economic decline and political crises for the past three years. And the situation worsened because of the pandemic and the huge explosion in the port...
Peru
Peru is the third largest country in South America in terms of surface area. Its geographical diversity ranges from the Amazon rainforest to the highlands of the Andes. The majority...
Brazil
Of Brazil’s approximately 213 million inhabitants, 64% are Catholic. At the same time, the number of believers continues to decline. Twenty years ago, Catholics still made up 75% of the...
Venezuela
Once rich Venezuela has been experiencing an unprecendented crisis since 2013, which has now led to famine. Almost 80% of about 33 million Venezuelans suffer from extreme poverty. Added to...
Nicaragua
The people in the “land of a thousand volcanoes” have always lived with the risk that the earth could open up or erupt at any moment. This also applies in...
Haiti
Located in the Caribbean, south-east of Cuba, the island nation of Haiti is considered the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Natural disasters, such as Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and...
Mozambique
Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world. Between 1977 and 1992, civil war nearly destroyed this south-east African country. The consequences can still be felt today. Nevertheless,...
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo is four times the size of France in area and has a wealth of mineral resources, including gold, diamonds, ores and oil. Even so, a...
Ethiopia in 2021
The country on the Horn of Africa is a land of many contrasts. Despite strong economic growth, great poverty exists in many areas. In some regions, Islam has become increasingly...
Burkina Faso
The West African country of Burkina Faso has long been considered an example of peaceful coexistence between religions. About a quarter of the population is Christian, and just over 60%...
Cuba
Foreign tourists consider Cuba - the island stated in the Caribbean - a holiday paradise. But the economy in the country, which has been ruled by socialists for decades, has...
Solomon Islands in 2020
The Solomon Islands are a group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, located about 720 kilometres east of New Guinea. Many of the more than 1,000 islands in the...
Northern Europe in 2020
In the countries of Northern Europe, with the exception of Lithuania, Catholics form a very small minority. As a result, the Church often lacks the necessary income to continue fulfilling...
Europe in 2021
In Europe, the Church needs help, especially in the former Eastern Bloc states. There, atheistic communism left a great vacuum in society that has not yet been completely overcome, even...
Lebanon in 2020
Lebanon has often been praised as the Switzerland of the Middle East. Not least because of its comparatively high level of prosperity and the peaceful coexistence of religions. But the...
Argentina
With an area of approximately 2.8 million square kilometres, Argentina is the eighth largest country in the world. Almost 70% of the 44 million inhabitants are Catholics. Pope Francis’ homeland...
Bolivia
For a long time, Bolivia was considered the poorest country on the South American continent. Even though the economic situation has improved somewhat, not much of the increased prosperity has...
Papua New Guinea in 2019
Papua New Guinea has about 8 million inhabitants. The Catholic Church has only been represented here for a few generations and today, with more than 2 million believers, it forms...
Sri Lanka
About 70% of Sri Lanka’s 21 million inhabitants are Buddhists. Just under 13% are Hindus, 10% are Muslims and 7.4% are mainly Catholic Christians. A civil war raged in the...
Philippines in 2020
The Philippines is the only majority Christian country in Asia. More than 80% of the island nation’s 100 million inhabitants are Catholic. 2020 was also marked by the coronavirus pandemic...
Pakistan in 2020
Of Pakistan’s approximately 207 million inhabitants, about 97% are Muslims. Religious minorities – including Christians, who make up 2% of the total population – are practically second-class citizens. They suffer...
India in 2020
With more than 1.3 billion inhabitants, India is the country with the world’s largest population after China. Although the country has a rapidly growing economy, many regions are still plagued...
Kyrgyzstan in 2019
Kyrgyzstan was a Soviet republic until 1991. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country became independent. Only about 6.3 million people belonging to different ethnic groups live on...
Russia in 2020
Like almost everywhere in the world, 2020 was marked by the coronavirus pandemic in Russia. There were also many infections among Church representatives. The Orthodox Church, in particular, suffered numerous...
Ukraine in 2020
Of the approximately 44 million inhabitants of Ukraine, just under 10% are Catholics. The Catholic Church is represented here by two rites: the Roman Catholic and the Greek Catholic. Seventy...
Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia became independent in 1991 and have been members of the European Union since 2004. As the southernmost and largest...
Refugees in Western Europe in 2019
Even if the flow of refugees to Western Europe has slowed down, one can certainly not speak of a relaxed situation. ACN has therefore increased its commitment to Christian refugees...
Iraq
Iraq has been left with nothing. The country is struggling to rise from the rubble left behind by the Islamic State during the years of siege. But corruption in government...
Syria in 2020
In the first years of the Syrian war, when it was a matter of sheer survival, ACN was able to save tens of thousands of Christians with emergency aid projects....
Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2020
The Democratic Republic of Congo is known for its wealth of mineral resources. But a large part of the 85 million inhabitants lives in abject poverty due to corruption and...
Ethiopia in 2020
The country on the Horn of Africa is a land of many contrasts. Ethiopia’s population of nearly 102 million is divided into more than 100 different ethnic groups with different...
Zambia in 2020
Zambia has one of the fastest growing populations in the world. Although the landlocked southern African country is one of the more stable countries in Africa, over 60% of its...
Cameroon in 2019
Like Nigeria, neighbouring Cameroon also suffers from increasing outbreaks of violence. In 2019, conflicts between the separatists of the English-speaking parts of the country and the French-speaking central government have...
Nigeria in 2020
For years, the Christian minority in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria has suffered from attacks and assaults by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. In the first two months...
Ghana in 2019
The West African country Ghana has nearly 29 million inhabitants. A great majority of them, about 70%, are Christians. Most belong to Protestant communities. Only about 15% are Catholics. Especially...
Burkina Faso in 2020
Burkina Faso was long considered an example of peaceful coexistence between religions. In this country in western Africa, just over 60% of the 20 million inhabitants are Muslims, while around...
Mauritania in 2019
The Islamic Republic of Mauritania in northwest Africa has a population of about 4.3 million and is one of the poorest countries in the world. Since the 1970s, the desert...
Chile
Official figures claim that two-thirds of the 17.9 million Chileans are Catholic. However, according to recent surveys, the percentage is actually much lower at just 45%. But many faithful are...
Haiti in 2019
Haiti is considered to be the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Natural disasters such as the devastating earthquake of 2010 or Hurricane Matthew in 2016 repeatedly cause severe devastation....
Peru in 2020
In the third largest country in South America, the majority of the 32 million Peruvians belong to indigenous tribes – Catholics form what is by far the largest religious denomination...
Brazil in 2020
The coronavirus pandemic hit Brazil with full force last year. Even though President Bolsonaro repeatedly played down the dangers of the virus, the statistics reflect a catastrophic development: At the...
Venezuela in 2020
Venezuela is facing a crisis that is unprecedented in recent history: the country, once well developed, was driven into the economic abyss by hyperinflation and corruption under President Maduro. Meanwhile,...