Pope Francis starts a trip on Tuesday to two fragile African nations often forgotten by the world, where protracted conflicts have left millions of refugees and displaced people grappling with hunger.
The Jan. 31-Feb 5 visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan, takes the 86-year-old pope to places where Catholics make up about half of the populations and where the Church is a key player in health and education systems as well as in democracy-building efforts.
The trip was scheduled to take place last July but was postponed because Francis was suffering a flare-up of a chronic knee ailment. He still uses a wheelchair and cane but his knee has improved significantly.
Both countries are rich in natural resources – DRC in minerals and South Sudan in oil – but beset with poverty and strife.
DRC, which is the second-largest country in Africa and has a population of about 90 million, is getting its first visit by a pope since John Paul II travelled there in 1985 when it was known as Zaire.
Francis had planned to visit the eastern city of Goma but that stop was scrapped following the resurgence of fighting between the army and the M23 rebel group in the area where Italy’s ambassador, his bodyguard, and driver were killed in an ambush in 2021.
Francis will stay in the capital, Kinshasa, but will meet there with victims of violence from the east.
“Congo is a moral emergency that cannot be ignored,” the Vatican’s ambassador to DRC, Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, told Reuters.
According to the U.N. World Food Programme, 26 million people in the DRC face severe hunger.
The country’s 45 million-strong Catholic Church has a long history of promoting democracy and, as the pope arrives, it is gearing up to monitor elections scheduled for December.
“Our hope for the Congo is that this visit will reinforce the Church’s engagement in support of the electoral process,” said Britain’s ambassador to the Vatican, Christ Trott, who spent many years as a diplomat in Africa.
DRC is getting its first visit by a pope since John Paul II traveled there in 1985 when it still was known as Zaire.
Unprecedented joint pilgrimage
The trip takes on an unprecedented nature on Friday when the pope leaves Kinshasa for South Sudan’s capital, Juba.
That leg is being made with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields.
“Together, as brothers, we will live an ecumenical journey of peace,” Francis told tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday address.
The three Churches represent the Christian makeup of the world’s youngest country, which gained independence in 2011 from predominantly Muslim Sudan after decades of conflict and has a population of around 11 million.
“This will be a historic visit,” Welby said. “After centuries of division, leaders of three different parts of (Christianity) are coming together in an unprecedented way.”
Two years after independence, conflict erupted when forces loyal to President Salva Kiir clashed with those loyal to Vice President Riek Machar, who is from a different ethnic group. The bloodshed spiraled into a civil war that killed 400,000 people.
A 2018 deal stopped the worst of the fighting, but parts of the agreement – including the deployment of a re-unified national army – have not yet been implemented.
There are 2.2 million internally displaced people in South Sudan and another 2.3 million have fled the country as refugees, according to the United Nations, which has praised the Catholic Church as a “powerful and active force in building peace and reconciliation in conflict-torn regions”.
In one of the most remarkable gestures, since his papacy began in 2013, Francis knelt to kiss the feet of South Sudan’s previously warring leaders during a retreat at the Vatican in April 2019, urging them not to return to civil war.
Trott, a former ambassador in South Sudan, said he hoped the three Churchmen can convince political leaders to “fulfill the promise of the independence movement”.
![Rev. Fr. Anthony Odiong, a US-based Nigerian Louisiana Catholic priest, was arrested in Florida on Tuesday for possessing child pornography, according to law authorities. The suspect is reportedly accused of many other cases of sexual assault. The Waco, Texas, Police Department announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday that officers detained Father Anthony Odiong in Ave Maria, Florida, with assistance from the United States Marshals Service. Waco police announced in March that they had received "credible information" about a sexual assault allegedly committed by Odiong in Texas in 2012. “During the subsequent investigation, a case of possession of child pornography was uncovered,” the police said. The priest was apprehended in Florida by the Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force. The Waco Police Department said that he will be extradited to Texas. Odiong had previously served in the Archdiocese of New Orleans before being removed as priest in December of last year due to controversy over homilies in which he claimed, among other things, that the Catholic Church was being taken over by "the gays." At the time, the priest was also accused of abusive behaviour; a Louisiana lady claimed in U.S. bankruptcy court that Odiong had committed both financial and sexual abuse against her. Prior to joining the New Orleans Archdiocese, Odiong served in at least two Texas parishes. On Tuesday, Waco police stated that during their sexual assault investigation, "the presence of other survivors was revealed." “Multiple women have come forward to tell similar experiences as the sexual assault survivor who reported the initial allegation,” the police department said. “Survivors’ experiences ranged from sexual assault and indecent assault, more commonly recognised as groping, and financial abuse, with some survivors experiencing every element of Anthony Odiong’s manipulation.” The police said they “believe there may be more survivors, and we wish to speak with anyone who [has] had similar encounters” with the priest. The Archdiocese of New Orleans issued a brief news release on Tuesday noting Odiong's arrest in Florida. The archdiocese “encourages anyone with any information to contact law enforcement,” the release said.](https://chronicle.ng/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ezgif-6-4730550ede-450x300.jpg "Odiong: US-based Nigerian Catholic priest convicted over sexual assault")
