Aid to the Church in Need appoints Ferdinand Habsburg as secretary-general

The pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has appointed Austrian Ferdinand Habsburg as its new secretary-general, succeeding German Philipp Ozores.

The appointment was formally made by executive president Regina Lynch on Jan. 13, a decision that comes shortly after Cardinal Kurt Koch was appointed by Leo XIV as president of ACN International in November 2025.

Habsburg is 60 years old, married, and the father of three children. Raised in Zurich, Switzerland, where he was educated at the secondary school of the Benedictine monastery of Einsiedeln, he has been involved with the pontifical foundation since 1985, when he worked for a year at the Coptic Catholic Patriarchate of Cairo, Egypt.

He later moved to Berlin, Germany, and earned a master’s degree in German literature, international relations, and anthropology, after which he pursued a professional career in marketing and media for companies such as Bertelsmann, Procter & Gamble, and Red Bull.

In 2007, he founded Da Vinci Media, a company specializing in educational and family-oriented content for Europe, Asia, and Africa. In September 2025, he joined ACN as its director of communications and fundraising.

In a statement, ACN International’s executive president, Regina Lynch, highlighted Habsburg’s “great analytical and strategic mind, his capacity to listen and create synergies, his extensive business experience, and his deep love for our mission.”

The new ACN secretary-general expressed his profound gratitude for the trust placed in him “at a time when our Christian brothers and sisters are being persecuted in many parts of the world,” saying “ACN’s mission to support the suffering and persecuted Church is more relevant than ever.”

Aid to the Church in Need, a pontifical foundation, is an international organization with national sections in more than 20 countries across Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. In 2024, the foundation funded 5,373 projects in 138 countries.

Every two years, ACN publishes the “Religious Freedom in the World Report,” the only nongovernmental study that analyzes the state of religious freedom for all religions in every country in the world.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.