Aid to the Church in Need, New Leader

Aid to the Church in Need's New Leader (Part 1)
Interview With Secretary-General Pierre-Marie Morel

By Isabelle Cousturié


KOENIGSTEIN, Germany, APRIL 29, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Being the secretary-general of Aid to the Church in needs requires a variety of professional skills, but most of all, it requires love, says the charity organization's new leader.

Pierre-Marie Morel took the role of secretary-general at the Germany-based aid organization in January. In this interview with ZENIT, he speaks of the challenges of the job, as well as the challenges the Church faces in this new millennium.

Part 2 of this interview will be published Wednesday.

Q: You studied economics and have carried out leadership roles in important international companies. How do you feel now being in this post?

Morel: One must continue being realistic and balanced. At age 60, I am at the end of my career and it is completely normal that I would have occupied diverse and varied posts. What is interesting, on the other hand, is to see how the Lord prepares us.

The various ecclesial and pastoral activities that my wife, Anne, and I have carried out in the Church, and especially over the last 25 plus years within the Emmanuel Community, have made us grow in a spirit of service and openness.

Finding myself in this post fills me with joy because it brings me to attain a unity between my faith and my professional life. The responsibility of the task, nevertheless, invites me to faithfully meet the Lord in prayer and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Regarding the position of secretary-general, it is an office that should bring together various skills, such as the use of new technologies, finances and people management. The unique element of a position like this is that it also requires a great love for the Church and abandonment to the Holy Spirit. Beyond our professional skills, which
are indispensable, our principal task is to love -- and that's never easy.

Q: Is your international experience in the field of multinational business management a plus or a different way of conceptualizing the aid to Churches that are persecuted, victims of discrimination, or too poor to fulfill their pastoral mission?

Morel: My roles in IBM or EADS were extremely varied and 12 years living outside my country have helped me to learn about the phenomena of globalization in different cultures. ACN is an ecclesial work, and thus has a universal vocation. If at the beginning, it was oriented toward the persecuted Church behind the Iron Curtain, today the situation is very different, and the requests for aid come from bishops from every
continent.

The discernment of the pastoral projects passes through the filter of the local dioceses, which prepare the documents requesting aid. Then, a team of experts carries out a new discernment process in light of the priorities of the Holy See and also the financial possibilities of the work. The secretary-general and the president approve the distribution of the budgets set aside for the various parts of the world and the most
important projects.

In the solidarity at the level of pastoral projects, there is a double movement. The stories that are in the closing reports of a project, with their testimonies, revitalize our own often-lukewarm Christian communities. Thus the generosity and the prayer of the benefactors are enriched by the gift of joy and testimony.

See, in the face of all the suffering of the Church, one can only give the Lord the grace of joyful hope and humility.

Q: Aid from ACN responds to the needs of the local churches that suffer most, or that are most deprived. What is the tendency of needs around the world? Are the requests increasing, even from churches in countries where, we could say, everything was going fine before? And in your opinion, what is the cause of this situation?

Morel: To begin with, the Iron Curtain has fallen, and the situation of the world and the Church continues evolving in contrasting ways.

Where the Church is persecuted, there is great suffering, but one of the fruits of this suffering is that it often gains in strength, size and sanctity.

Paradoxically, where Western secularization seems to make everything possible, the Church tends to be weaker and the suffering is of a different kind. Is it because status and the worship of money cause a separation from fundamental values? Is it because the Western cultural revolution, as Marguerite Peeters says, is one of the most effective
social engineering mechanisms of globalization and apostasy?

Gender ideology has probably not finished playing havoc with our Western world, but it can also touch countries previously protected in Africa or Latin America. So we should form ourselves so as not to fall into the traps of anthropological deconstruction planned by this ideology.

A recent development refers to billions of babies killed before birth, ever since laws have authorized this. The family is ridiculed, responsible maternity and paternity are disgraced, society as a whole has become fragile because of the liberalization of customs, and laws now assure the promotion of what was recently still recognized in our civil codes as inciting corruption.

So, yes, the needs of the Church are going to evolve and, besides the urgent requests that come to us from around the world, it is to be expected that the requests for a new evangelization increase from the Western world.

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Aid to the Church in Need's New Leader (Part 2)

Interview With Secretary-General Pierre-Marie Morel

By Isabelle Cousturié

KOENIGSTEIN, Germany, APRIL 30, 2008 (Zenit.org).- For Aid to the Church in Need, projects can range from obtaining bicycles for African catechists to promoting unity in China, but each undertaking is important, says the organization's new secretary-general.

Pierre-Marie Morel took the role of secretary-general at the Germany-based aid organization in January. In this interview with ZENIT, he speaks of the benefactors who make the organization possible, and the universal mission of the Church.

Part 1 of this interview was published Tuesday.

Q: What kinds of aid requests do you get most frequently?

Morel: I can give you an overview of the distribution of our aid based on the nature of the projects in 2007, which will be published soon in our annual report: Aid to construction -- 28.1%; aid to urgent relief -- 1.3%; aid to subsistence -- 3.3%;
Mass offerings -- 14.2%; religious formation -- 14.3%; communications media apostolate -- 3%; biblical apostolate -- 3.9%; pastoral aid -- 18.4%; catechesis -- 8.6%; aid with travel -- 4.9%.

But one shouldn't consider just financial help. There is no such thing as a small project. Each project is important, regardless of its budget. In principle, it's about listening to the needs of our brothers and sisters in the faith, with great respect for those who know the
priorities better than we do.

Three very different examples: A project in Africa to obtain a dozen bicycles so catechists can arrive to communities out in the country can be something highly important; a project to participate in the construction of a seminary in Lviv in Ukraine can have immense consequences in the pastoral ministry of the region; a project that
could contribute to the reconciliation of official and non-official Catholics in China would respond to the reflection from Benedict XVI on Jan. 8, 2007 in his meeting with the diplomatic corps.

He said on that occasion, "My thoughts go out to the Christian communities. In most Asian countries, they tend to be small but lively communities, with a legitimate desire to be able to live and act in a climate of religious liberty. This is not only a primordial right but it is a condition that will enable them to contribute to the material and spiritual progress of society, and to be sources of cohesion and harmony."

As you know, the Holy Father later published a letter to all Catholics in China inviting them to unity.

Thus, one can better see the scope of projects like these.

Q: The money that the organization distributes comes exclusively from benefactors. Let's talk about how much you receive. How do you see it? Is it constant? Is it enough to answer the requests?

Morel: The donations curve is a constant miracle, because in recent years, it has followed the curve of aid requests. The progress in the donations is not entirely linear, but it tends upward. Nevertheless, the donations don't always allow us to cover the total of the needs. In 2007, we were able to respond to a few more than 5,000 projects out of
7,000 requests.

In 1994, €58 million were donated; in 2000, €66 million; in 2005, €74 million and in 2007, €79 million.

Regarding the future, as you know, the progress of the donation curve is in the Lord's hands. Nevertheless, we trust both in the generosity of our benefactors and the new donors -- often youth -- who more and more are joining in this solidarity project.

We will also continue adapting ourselves to the development of the world, developing the presence of our national offices and continuing to improve our communication so as to spread the word about this organization that is indispensable in maintaining the pastoral ministry of the Church in the world.

Q: What are you proposing at this level? Do you already have a project in mind that you would like to implement?

Morel: The great orientation for the future has to do with reaching out to segments of the population who are younger than our current middle-aged benefactors, for evangelization and for the continuation of our work.

The second main area touches on the evangelization of the means of communication and evangelization with these means and with new technologies.

Q: You have said on various occasions since your appointment that you see the Church like a global performer. Can you explain this?

Morel: [...] The Church is an expert in humanity and because of that, has a universal mission. Who speaks of Love better than the Church? Who speaks of forgiveness better than the Church? Who speaks of happiness better than the Church?

Who speaks of truth better than the Church? Who invites us to meditate on the word of God better than the Church?

And this is not reserved to a few beginners, but to every person of good will who seeks the truth. On every continent. In this sense, the Church has a universal vocation.


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Permission by Zenit to distribute to Assisi-L