The Pope arrives in South Sudan.
Pope Francis made a final appeal for peace in South Sudan on Sunday as he celebrated Mass before tens of thousands of people to close out an unusual mission by Christian religious leaders to nudge forward the country's recovery from civil war.
On the last day of his African pilgrimage, Francis begged
South Sudanese people to lay down their weapons and forgive one another,
presiding over Mass at the country's monument to independence hero John Garang
before an estimated 100,000 people, including the country's political
leadership.
"Even if our hearts bleed for the wrongs we have
suffered, let us refuse, once and for all, to repay evil with evil,"
Francis said. "Let us accept one another and love one another with
sincerity and generosity, as God loves us."
His message aimed to revive hopes in the world's youngest
country, which gained independence from the majority Muslim Sudan in 2011 but
has been beset by civil war and conflict.
President Salva Kiir, his longtime rival Riek Machar and
other opposition groups signed a peace agreement in 2018, but the deal's
provisions, including the formation of a national unified army, remain largely
unimplemented and fighting has continued to flare.
"We have suffered a lot," said Natalima Andrea, a
66-year-old mother of seven who wiped a tear from her eye as she waited for
Francis' Mass to begin. "We need a permanent peace now and I hope these
prayers would yield to lasting peace."
The Vatican said more than 100,000 people attended the
service, filling the field of the Garang Mausoleum and surrounding roads.
In a bid to spur the process along, Francis was joined on
the novel ecumenical peace mission by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin
Welby, and the moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields.
The aim of the Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian leaders was to push Kiir and
Machar to recommit themselves to the 2018 deal.
Welby and Greenshields joined Francis on the altar at Mass
on Sunday and were to accompany him on the flight back to Rome.
The three also aimed to put a global spotlight on the plight of the country, oil-rich and yet one of the world's poorest, where humanitarian needs are soaring for the 2 million people who have been displaced by continued clashes and years of above-average flooding. Watchdogs' allegations of corruption are also widespread; some South Sudanese upon the pope's arrival noted that his modest vehicle was overshadowed by local officials' luxury ones.
During the three-day visit, Francis, Welby and Greenshields sought
to draw attention to the plight of South Sudan's most vulnerable people, the
women and children who have borne the brunt of displacement and make up the
majority of people living in temporary camps.
They raised in particular the plight of women in a country
where sexual violence is rampant, child brides are common and the maternal
mortality rate is the highest in the world.
"If we look at South Sudan, I would just use one word:
South Sudan is a patriarchal country," said Elizabeth Nyibol Malou, a lecturer
in economics at the Catholic University of South Sudan. Citing cultural norms
in which wealth is passed down to male heirs and women are married young for
dowries, she said it is a constant struggle to keep girls in school.
Women in South Sudan, she said, "are tired. They are
struggling. They are frustrated, and they're stuck."
Edmund Yakani, executive director of the Community
Empowerment for Progress Organization, said the visit of the three leaders was
an important push to the peace process.
He called it a "critical exposure of our political
leaders towards their personal responsibility for making peace and stability
prevail in the country."
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