Khartoum, Sudan, Jan 10, 2007 / 11:35 am
An Auxiliary Bishop for the Sudanese Archdiocese of Khartoum has credited Catholic charity organization Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) for strengthening the local Church through their support.
Bishope Daniel Marok Kur Adwok told ACN’s Christian Klyma recently that, “The position of our archdiocese is strong mainly due to the support we received from Aid to the Church in Need over the past few years.”
“While 25 years ago there was only 1 priest in Khartoum, nowadays we have 121. Our archdiocese has 30 parishes and 123 centres where the Eucharist is being regularly celebrated. Of the archdiocese’s about 18 million inhabitants, more than 900,000 are Catholics,” he added.
With regard to a foreseen transfer of the St Paul seminary to Juba in the south of Sudan, the Bishop said that it was due to be transferred “in 2007 – starting with the Philosophy seminarians.” At the moment, 7 teachers are instructing 73 candidates.
ACN funding has also helped the Khartoum Archdiocese run it’s “Save the Saveables” project, which currently includes 65 schools with some 33,000 pupils and 1,050 teachers. The project tries to give adequate education to schoolchildren who have come to Khartoum fleeing from the south of the country, where since January of 2005 a peace agreement has been mostly adhered to.