Aid to the Church in Need
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aid to the Church in Need (Kirche in Not in German, Aiuto alla Chiesa che Soffre in Italian) describes itself as "an international pastoral aid organization of the Catholic Church, which yearly offers financial support to more than 8,000 projects worldwide. We try to help Catholics in need wherever they are repressed or persecuted and therefore prevented from living according to their faith."
What is now Aid to the Church in Need was founded by Dutch Catholic priest Father Werenfried van Straaten at Christmas 1947 to aid German refugees driven out of Eastern Europe in the wake of the Second World War, many of them Catholic.
With international headquarters in Königstein in Germany since 1975, it currently has branches in 16 countries of the world. Its main publication is Mirror.
Following a 1984 decree of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy, Aid to the Church in Need was recognized by the Catholic Church as a "universal public association of faithful".
In 2001, the organization raised more than $75 million, entirely from private donations.
