The international pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) received a total of €139.3 million in donations and legacies in 2024 – a sign of the enduring trust and generosity of its benefactors worldwide. This value, along with €2.2 million of reserves from the previous year, allowed the foundation to fund activities worth €141.5 million.

The generosity of almost 360,000 benefactors in the 23 countries where ACN has national offices, among others, allowed ACN to fund 5,335 projects in 137 countries. They also continue to allow ACN to function without any financial support from governments and thus keep its independence.  

In a message to benefactors, Tyrone-born Executive President of ACN International, Regina Lynch, states: “Thanks to your generosity ACN has been able to bring hope to hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters in faith, who face daily challenges such as persecution or wars or sheer poverty. Many of you experience your own hardships but still you have answered God’s call to bring hope to others. At the heart of every project is the desire to help the church to be an instrument of God's message of love for all people”.

A total of 79.8 per cent of these funds went directly to mission-related expenses. Within this amount, 84.7 per cent went to aid projects, allowing the foundation to fund 5,335 projects out of the 7,296 requests received from all over the world.

The remaining 15.3 per cent of the mission-related expenses, or 17.3 million euro, went to activities related to information work, proclaiming the faith and the defence of persecuted Christians, including the publishing of religious literature, as well as prayer campaigns and advocacy for the rights and interests of persecuted and suffering Christians. Administrative expenditure accounted for 7.5 per cent and advertising a further 12.7 per cent, both essential to the functioning of the charity.

Aid with a global reach

The country that received the most aid from ACN in 2024 was Ukraine (8.4 million euro), for the third year in a row. Lebanon (7.4 million) came next, followed by India (6.7 million).

“Ukraine was again the single country receiving the greatest proportion of our assistance which has increasingly focused on counselling and supporting those suffering from trauma. At the same time, we are continuing to help priests and religious with basic support for their life and ministry, helping to train seminarians and providing transport to help them carry out their pastoral ministry, and also assisting with essential heating for the winter,” Ms Lynch says.

At the regional level, Africa received the most support, with almost a third of resources, or 30.2 per cent, set aside for projects in the continent. Among the main beneficiary countries in this region include Nigeria and Burkina Faso.

“Our help for Africa accounted for the largest slice of our project aid last year. The Church in Africa is growing rapidly and is blessed with large numbers of priestly and religious vocations. Africa suffers not only from deep poverty but also increasingly from violent Islamic jihadist terror in a growing number of countries. To give just one example, in Burkina Faso alone our aid has increased threefold over the past four years as a result,” Lynch explains.

A further 18.7 per cent of ACN funds in 2024 went to Asia-Oceania, the second highest amount per region, especially to India, which in addition to being the country to receive the third most support from ACN in 2024, is also the country where the foundation provides the largest number of scholarships and Mass stipends.

The Middle East, with 17.5 per cent of aid, was the region which received the third highest amount of support, with Lebanon, Syria and the Holy Land being the primary beneficiaries, after the escalation of the armed conflicts. Latin America and Europe received 16.8 per cent and 15.9 per cent of the total aid each. The remaining 0.9 per cent went to other regions.

Thousands of projects of concrete help

The charity provided almost 1.85 million Mass stipends to 42,252 priests in 2024, the highest number ever in ACN’s history. Statistically, this means that one in every 10 priests in the world received support from ACN and that every 17 seconds a Mass was celebrated somewhere around the world for the intentions of ACN benefactors.  

ACN also supported the formation of almost 10,000 seminarians during 2024, which accounts for one in every 11 seminarians in the world. Most of these, 5,305 were in Africa, which is now home to highest number of priestly vocations in the world, followed by Latin America with 1,824 seminarians helped by ACN, Asia with 1,752, and Europe with 1,080, of which 700 are in Ukraine.

Support for the formation of priests, religious and laypeople represented 28.2 per cent of all the support, whereas Mass stipends for priests and subsistence aid for women religious amounted to 23.9 per cent.

Given the high costs of construction projects, this type of aid is at the top of the list, with a little under a quarter of the aid provided (23.6 per cent ). In 2024, there were just over 750 construction projects.

ACN also directed 10.5per cent of its aid to transportation, providing 1,141 vehicles to help pastoral agents carry out their missions including 474 automobiles, 388 bicycles, 264 motorcycles, 11 boats, three buses and one lorry.

Emergency aid accounted for around 10.7 per cent of expenses, a similar percentage as in the previous year.