# The charity that tells the persecuted Church's story

> Aid to the Church in Need picked a new coordinator in Rome, and spelled out what it will and won't do.
- Title: The charity that tells the persecuted Church's story
- Summary: Aid to the Church in Need picked a new coordinator in Rome, and spelled out what it will and won't do. ACN funds faith, not infrastructure: churches…
- Keywords: catholic church, charity, religious persecution, evangelization, middle east, religion, world, tells, persecuted, Church's, story, Vaticannews
- Source: Vaticannews — https://vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2026-09/aid-to-the-church-in-need-election-new-coordinator.html
- Author: Vatican News
- Published: 2026-09-14T08:03:37.031+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: catholic church, charity, religious persecution, evangelization, middle east, religion, world
## Eighty years, 140 countries
Aid to the Church in Need is a Pontifical Foundation working with more than 1,300 dioceses and backing over 5,000 projects a year, with national sections in 24 countries.
## A new coordinator in Rome
The foundation's Ecclesiastical Assistants met in Rome and elected Austrian Msgr. Friedrich Bechina as coordinator. They also met their new president, Cardinal Kurt Koch.
## The Pope was once a partner
Bechina says Leo XIV worked with ACN as a bishop in Peru, and now wants the foundation to take more responsibility for evangelization.

> When he was a bishop in Peru, he was one of our project partners
## Not just writing cheques
Benefactors fund the work, but Bechina frames the mission as strengthening local Churches through evangelization and pastoral care, and telling the story of those persecuted for their faith.

> persecuted Churches have their own unique riches, which they share with us. They have hope.
## What ACN refuses to do
No water purification, no medical aid. Bechina says other Catholic groups do that better, so ACN builds churches and prepares priests, lay people, and religious to preach.

> We do not work on water purification or provide medical aid
## A reason to stay
In the Middle East, churches are destroyed and communities displaced. Funding parish structures and the clergy serving them is meant to give people a reason not to emigrate.

> By supporting Church structures... we help give the Church a chance to survive.
## Seminarians and crisis response
ACN funds 250 seminarians and priests studying abroad, many of them African vocations short on formation options, and moves fast in Venezuela, Colombia, and disaster zones.
## Saying what Rome cannot
Vatican officials told the delegation that ACN's advocacy work lets it speak bluntly about persecution in ways the Holy See sometimes cannot do publicly.

> we can sometimes speak clearly and directly about issues that... the Holy See cannot always address publicly
## Key takeaway

ACN funds faith, not infrastructure: churches, priests, and seminarians, plus a public voice for Christians the Vatican cannot always defend out loud.