Thursday, June 15, 2023 - Pontifical Charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) presents its 2022 annual accounts which reflect a year of record support. Ukraine was the largest individual recipient of help for projects in 2022, receiving almost 10% of the aid, while Africa was the region that received the most support.

Aid to the Church in Need broke another record in 2022, having topped 200 million dollars in donations and legacies received. ACN Canada raised 2.5 million last year. A modest figure indeed, but one that has been rising steadily on average over the past five years.

ACN does not receive public funding, which means that all aid provided was only possible due to the generosity of the more than 364,000 individual benefactors who donated a record total of $200,028,422 in 2022—almost 13 million more than in 2021.

In a message to these benefactors, departing ACN International Executive President, Thomas Heine-Geldern, wrote: “It is with gratitude and humility that we see that the blessing of the Almighty has once again rested on our work, and that our benefactors have heard the cries of our oppressed brothers and sisters. This allows us to face the future with confidence, even though our help will continue to be needed for years to come.”

With an additional 3.7 million dollars in reserves from the previous year, activities amounting to 203.7 dollars were financed in 2022. Of this total amount of expenditures, 82.6%, or 168.3 million dollars, was dedicated to mission-related activities, including specific project funding (87.2%), as well as information, evangelization, and advocacy work (12.8%) that characterize ACN’s mission.

A total of 17.4% of the total revenue, or 35.4 million dollars, went to administration (6.7%) and advertising and publicity (10.7%) costs.

Global reach of the help

The largest single recipient of ACN funding in 2022 was Ukraine, where the charity stepped up its aid at a time when the Ukrainian Catholic Church is facing unprecedented challenges due to the ongoing war. A total of 353 projects were funded in the country, especially to help priests, religious, seminarians, and other Church workers who have been working with refugees and others in desperate situations. With 13.2 million dollars, Ukraine absorbed close to 10% of the aid.

Regionally, Africa received the most aid provided by ACN benefactors (31.5%), followed by the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe (18.1% and 17.7% respectively). Latin America received 16.7%, Asia and Oceania received 14.6%, and the remaining 1.4% went to other areas.

Besides the sum allocated to specific projects, 21.5 million went to information, evangelization and advocacy work, including the publication of religious literature, prayer campaigns, and the defence of the interests of poor and persecuted Christians.

Close to 6,000 projects funded

ACN’s aid translated into 972 construction projects, around one third of which were churches or chapels; 1,253 vehicles, including 564 cars, 252 motorcycles, 16 boats, 11 buses and 4 trucks, as well as 406 bicycles to make life easier for pastoral workers to carry out their missions, especially in Africa and Latin America. The charity also supported over 40,000 priests with Mass offerings and close to 21,000 religious sisters, as well as almost 14,000 seminarians.

Overall, ACN funded a total of 5,702 projects, which is 404 more than in 2021. These projects were carried out in 1,199 dioceses—over a third of the world’s Catholic dioceses—in 128 countries. The largest project supported was the restoration of a partly destroyed parish centre in Iraq, amounting to over 1.3 million dollars, and the smallest was a training program in Colombia, valued at 400 dollars.

The financial statements of ACN worldwide have been audited and certified by PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers).

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