STEUBENVILLE, OH—Aid to the Church in Need, which provides material and spiritual relief to destitute people in 145 countries, received Franciscan University of Steubenville’s highest non-academic award at an October 11 ceremony held at the University.

The chairman of Aid to the Church in Need/USA, George Marlin, accepted the Poverello Medal on behalf of the relief organization from Franciscan University president Father Sean O. Sheridan, TOR.

“Aid to the Church in Need brings relief for souls and bodies and distributes food, clothing, shelter, and medical assistance while also distributing Bibles, catechetical materials, and most importantly, the sacraments,” said Father Sheridan.

Marlin expressed gratitude for the donations in Mass collection plates and from other sources that provide Aid to the Church in Need with more than $125 million annually to distribute worldwide.

He then detailed the plight of Christians who live in the war-torn Middle East—a major focus of ACN’s current relief efforts.

Decrying a lack of mainstream media coverage and a “Western world, Europe, and the United States that has had its head in the sand,” Marlin used hard statistics to highlight the dire plight of Middle East Christian and minority communities. He said in Syria alone since 2011 there have been 400,000 deaths, including 15,000 children, and the deaths of 6,000 medical and Church-relief personnel. “Christian children particularly are being kidnapped, raped, and sold into slavery, forced to marry ISIS members,” Marlin said.

Add to the human suffering the desecration of churches, relics, ancient sites, and historical documents, and the objective of ISIS in Syria becomes clear: “to destroy every remnant of Christianity in the Middle East,” he said.

ACN responds with all types of humanitarian aid, he shared. Monthly food rations, medicine, shelter, and hygiene supplies are shipped to displaced Christian communities and refugee centers. They also provide counseling for trauma victims and educational supplies so children can continue to learn. In one instance, a displaced Christian community living in a border zone received cheese-making machines and generators so they could make food from their goat herd.

Marlin, who wrote Christian Persecutions in the Middle East, said he does not see the situation in the Middle East improving any time soon and detailed job and education discrimination, abductions, murders of priests, and other types of persecution of Christians.

“Our job is to remind the West of this great problem. We are doing the best we can at Aid to the Church in Need. We should all remember that religious freedom is a fundamental human right and that today thousands are being persecuted, denied of their fundamental freedoms, discriminated against—killed simply because they hold Christian beliefs.”

Marlin applauded Pope Francis’ strong rebuke of Middle East Christian persecution, quoting him as saying, “The Christians in the Middle East are our martyrs of today.”

The Poverello Medal, which bears an image of St. Francis giving money to the poor, is cast in steel to signify simplicity and poverty. It honors organizations and individuals who follow in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi, Il Poverello (the little poor man), through strong Christian character, practical charity, and service to the poor.

First given in 1949 to the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, past recipients of the Poverello Medal include St. Teresa of Calcutta, Father Benedict Groeschel, CFR, L’Arche International (Jean Vanier), and the Little Sisters of the Poor.