Stop suffocating Africa, said the Pope Francis.
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O Pope Francis arrived yesterday, January 31, 2023, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on a long-awaited journey, which will be followed by a visit to South Sudan.
Both countries have large Catholic populations and have suffered long and violent conflicts that the pope's visit is expected to bring to light.
"Finally".
Pope Francis said as he began this long-awaited and postponed journey.
The visit to Kinshasa
Thousands of people in the DRC traveled to the capital Kinshasa to see Pope Francis. This is the first papal visit to the country since 1985, a visit to a country where almost half of its 95 million inhabitants are Catholic.
The welcome he received upon arrival was a reminder that Francis – even without the rock star status of his early years – can still lead a nation to joyful fervor, particularly one that is strongly Catholic and has long felt neglected.
The DRC's myriad problems cannot be solved by a papal trip, but on this trip, Pope Francis is offering something else – the chance to see those problems.
Hours after arriving, Pope Francis described the DRC as: a "vast and lush land" that has suffered in myriad ways, from the hardships of colonialism, to wars between ethnic groups, poor health care, forced migrations and famine.
“This country, so immense and full of life, this diaphragm of Africa, hit by violence like a blow to the stomach, seems to have been out of breath for some time now,” said Pope Francis.
On several occasions, the crowd applauded the Pope's comments, some shouting "yes" or "amen", including when he said that "the church and the pope trust the people".
“They believe in their future, the future is in their hands,” he said.
The Pope is scheduled to celebrate masses in Kinshasa and meet with various groups of victims of the violence that plagues the country, seeking in this way to raise the mood and spirit of the nation.
The purpose of the trip.
Pope Francis' six-day visit to Africa – first there's the DRC and then South Sudan – is not without its challenges. The two countries stand out as trouble spots in the wide swath of Christian-majority Africa.
Issues that Pope Francis has regularly spoken out against – exploitation by external powers, proliferation of weapons, environmental plunder – occur in both countries, in a devastating way, with the escalation of violence and the instability of peace agreements.
For Pope Francis, the trip has a tone of urgency. He was forced to cancel a trip that was scheduled for last summer because of knee pain. Since then, rebel groups have taken control of more territory in eastern DRC, uprooting half a million people and forcing the Vatican to cancel a visit to that part of the country.
The trip to the DRC and then South Sudan will highlight the longstanding conflicts in both countries and the growing importance of Africa for the future of the Catholic Church. Africa is the fastest growing place for the Church, with more than 200 million adherents, but the continent remains underrepresented in the Vatican's leadership.
On Friday, Pope Francis will fly from Kinshasa to Juba, the capital of South Sudan, where the Pope has personally invested in brokering peace between rival factions. In 2019, he invited President Salva Kiir and then rebel leader Riek Machar to a spiritual retreat at the Vatican, kissing their feet.
Now Kiir and Machar are part of the same government, but it barely holds the country together. Ongoing fighting and climate disasters year after year are fueling one of the biggest refugee crises in Africa.
Papal Journeys to Africa
This is his fifth trip to Africa as pope and, compared to his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, he has shown much more interest in the continent. This is in part a response to the fundamental shifts in faith that are on the wane in the West and on the rise in Africa, despite the challenges posed by the Pentecostal and Evangelical movements.
African seminary graduates now fill the gaps in the European priesthood, with Pope Francis raising a new class of African cardinals, diversifying the categories that will eventually choose his successor.
Conclusion
Congolese say it's hard to overstate how crucial the church is in a country that has faced more than a century of destabilizing tragedies: colonialist plunder by the Belgians; years of autocracy and the embezzlement of longtime former leader Mobutu Sese Seko; ongoing corruption and foreign interests that drain the country of its mineral wealth.
The church tends to step in where the government fails, helping mainly with education and health. He also worked to oversee the precarious road to the 2018 elections, which Félix Tshisekedi won in the first democratic transfer of power in the DRC.
It is therefore not surprising how Pope Francis was received upon arrival in Kinshasa, especially after making a bombastic comment:
“Hands off the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Hands off Africa! Stop suffocating the continent. Africa is not a mine to be plundered, or a land to be plundered. May Africa be the protagonist of its own destiny”.
What do you think of this papal visit? Do you agree with what Pope Francis said about the continent? We want to know your opinion, do not hesitate to comment and, if you liked the article, share it and give it a “like”.
Picture: © 2023 Alexis Huguet
