As the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) marks 100 years of humanitarian service this year, its national teams continue working in partnership with Eastern churches and local charities in the Middle East, Ethiopia, India, Ukraine and Armenia to bring the light of love, hope and healing to communities ravaged by war, genocide, natural disasters and economic hardship. 

Actively engaged with their partners on the ground in these countries, CNEWA began its mission with the direct rescue of survivors of one of the most brutal episodes in the world’s history — the death marches, forced displacement and massacre of over three million Christians, including Armenians, Assyrians, Syriacs and Greeks, that followed the collapse of the Ottoman empire at the end of the First World War.

On April 24, Armenians around the world commemorate this genocide in which so many of their ancestors perished. Historians note that Pope Pius XI founded CNEWA in 1926 to provide a sustainable lifeline to its survivors 

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“By the time, CNEWA was officially established by Pope Pius XI (as an amalgamation of several Catholic charities working in support of Eastern churches at the time), the survivors, mostly women and children, were scattered across the Middle East in countries such as Lebanon and Syria, facing starvation, disease and the trauma associated with the loss of their homeland,” Armenuhi Mkhoyan, communications officer at Caritas Armenia, a CNEWA partner, told The Catholic Register. 

“The organization’s early work was a race against time to save the remnants of these ancient Christian civilizations.” 

It was a time of geopolitical turmoil, when the leaders of powerful nations turned a blind eye to the plight of these Christian minorities in the former Ottoman empire — in sharp contrast to the leaders of the Catholic Church. Under the leadership of Pope Benedict XV and later Pope Pius XI, the Vatican was one of the few international powers that took active steps to stop the genocide and later to protect its survivors. 

Pope Benedict wrote a personal handwritten letter to the Sultan of Turkey, appealing to him to stop the deportations and massacres, and later raised his voice against the “annihilation” of Armenians. In the 1920s, Pope Benedict and Pope Pius gave refuge to Armenian orphans in Italy.

 A defining moment that activated the genesis of CNEWA was when Pope Pius provided refuge to Armenian orphans at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, a peaceful town 25 kms to the southeast of Rome. At Castel Gandolfo, a house traditionally reserved for papal rest and reflection became a sanctuary for approximately 400 Armenian refugee girls who had survived the horrors of the genocide.

Mkhoyan said the Pope ensured they were provided not only with the necessities of food, clothing and medical care, but also specialized education and a sense of family.

 “Historical accounts describe the pope visiting the children frequently and treating them with fatherly affection that restored a sense of dignity to their shattered lives,” she said.

“Though this event preceded the formal incorporation of CNEWA in 1926, it is widely regarded as the spiritual and moral blueprint for the organization’s founding. It demonstrated that when the world chose to look away for reasons of political expediency, the pope chose to open his home to these orphans, ensuring that the light of the Armenian spirit would not be extinguished.”

Today, CNEWA continues to serve its mission in Armenia, as defined by its founder. Caritas Armenia, in collaboration with CNEWA, implements several projects designed to support children and youth, which Mkhoyan said are particularly impactful.

Among these are:

•  The Little Prince Social Centre for Children that supports 75 children and their families who find themselves in difficult life situations. By facilitating social integration, it aims to help children live in a family environment and prevent their placement in residential institutions.

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•  Warm winter clothing for children in the Shirak region. This is a high-altitude region of Armenia, with long, bitterly cold winters and temperatures sometimes plunging to well below freezing.

•  Higher education access program for students from low-income and vulnerable families.

Ukraine is another country where CNEWA is actively serving people suffering from an ongoing war that’s taking a massive toll on its people. Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Feb. 24, 2022, day-to-day life in Ukraine is dominated by the reality of war, with constant power cuts, the uncertainty of when the next missile attack will sow more death and destruction and increasing economic hardship due to displacement and lost livelihoods.

“Ukraine is no longer in news headlines, but people there are still living with war from day to day,” Anastasia Hrynuik, who runs the Ukraine program from CNEWA’s Ottawa office, said. 

In partnership with Caritas Ukraine, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Catholic University, CNEWA is delivering programs that help veterans, the disabled, children and displaced families, she said. 

“The humanitarian needs there are the same as when the war first broke out,” she said. “CNEWA’s programs provide for immediate needs such as food and shelter, for the displaced, but also run long-term programs. The Orphan Care Centre in Lviv takes care of hundreds of orphans deprived of parental care.”

In addition to Armenia and Ukraine, CNEWA runs humanitarian programs in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Ethiopia, Eritrea and India.

“CNEWA will be hosting some events to mark our 100th anniversary, but we have not yet finalized the details,” said Adriana Bara, national director of CNEWA Canada. “Stay tuned for updates.”

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