In response to Pope Francis’s plea for the world to remember those vulnerable to the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) has launched a campaign to help address the urgent needs of those most in need cared for by the Eastern churches in the Middle East, Northeast Africa, India and Eastern Europe.
CNEWA president Msgr. John E. Kozar noted that CNEWA’s on-the-ground directors and program coordinators are working with a number of partners — the Holy See’s Congregation for the Eastern Churches, delegates and nuncios of the Holy See, local church superiors, and religious and lay leaders — to rush help to those most in need. This includes families living in poverty, children and the elderly, people with special needs, and refugees and the displaced. For many, the care offered by the peoples and services of the Eastern churches is their only source of solace and healing.
While the pandemic has brought much of North America’s economy to its knees, friends and donors have been generous already, and many have pledged their support.
As the Holy Father said so eloquently in his “Urbi et Orbi” message this Easter:
“This is not a time for indifference, because the whole world is suffering and needs to be united in facing the pandemic. May the risen Jesus grant hope to all the poor, to those living on the peripheries, to refugees and the homeless. May these, the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters living in the cities and peripheries of every part of the world, not be abandoned. “
To support the pope’s efforts to help those confronting the pandemic, click here: