Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth

Aid to the Church in Need

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Aid to the Church in Need (A registered Catholic charity in England and Wales (1097984) and Scotland (SC040748)) Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action. Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 130 countries throughout the world. The charity – whose UK office is in Sutton, Surrey – undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, to date, more than 47 million copies of Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been printed in 157 languages and have been distributed worldwide.