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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 24, 2025 / 13:35 pm
The U.S. Catholic bishops’ 2024 Solidarity Fund for the Church in Africa has awarded $2.6 million to support 96 pastoral projects across 32 African countries and multinational regions.
In a July 22 statement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said the “boundless growth of the Catholic faith” throughout Africa “can challenge the Church as much as material poverty does.”
The “gifts of American Catholics to the USCCB’s Solidarity Fund” help preserve a “spirit of unity” within the universal Church, the bishops said.
Compared with the 2023 effort, funding has increased by $500,000, expanding grant projects by 28%.
“The Solidarity Fund for the Church in Africa makes it possible for African Catholics to carry out vital spiritual and social ministries,” said Dubuque, Iowa, Archbishop Thomas Zinkula, chairman of the bishops’ Subcommittee on the Church in Africa.
“The African Church gives generously to the U.S. Church as thousands of African priests serve in parishes of the United States,” Zinkula pointed out.
The Solidarity Fund for the Church in Africa was created “as a concrete way for Catholics in the United States to express a spirit of unity with their brothers and sisters in Africa,” the USCCB says.
The U.S. bishops “created the national collections so that, by combining resources, we can more effectively carry out our mission as Catholics.”
The Solidarity Fund last year supported nearly 100 bishop-backed grants, funding projects such as peacebuilding in South Sudan, catechetical training in Zambia, and church administration workshops in Togo.
Also funded was intergenerational teaching in Malawi as well as climate advocacy in Eastern Africa, where parishes are becoming hubs for practical environmental action.
Supported by dioceses across the country, the faithful can contribute year-round through the #iGiveCatholicTogether collection program or participate in their parish’s collection on a date scheduled by the local diocese.
Paris Apodaca is a summer news intern for Catholic News Agency. She previously worked at the College Fix and has been published in a variety of outlets including the Washington Examiner, the Wall Street Journal’s Future View, and Campus Reform. In her spare time, she writes on Substack and reads political theory.
