Pope Francis vists sub-Saharan Africa

Happy Lá Fheile Bríde to readers of this blog.

This from Christopher Lamb, Rome correspondent of The Tablet.

Dear Reader,

A few hours ago I landed in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, for the first leg of Pope Francis’ historic visit to sub-Saharan Africa, which includes an ecumenical pilgrimage to South Sudan. I am among the group of journalists accompanying Francis on the papal plane and the only correspondent from a Catholic outlet in the UK. 

Travelling on the “volo papale” gives reporters a ringside side when reporting a Pope’s foreign visit. I was on board the plane when Francis made his first trip to Africa in 2015, which included visiting the war-torn Central African Republic. 

This is the fourth time I’ve accompanied the Pope on an African visit.

 

This trip, however, is unlike any other and is one of the boldest ones that the Pope has undertaken. DR Congo and South Sudan are countries that could be described as on the peripheries: both have suffered terrible internal conflicts that have killed hundreds of thousands, and both of them are places where the Church is a prophetic voice for peace. Neither of them gets much attention from the global media, although that’s about to change this week.

 

While in South Sudan, Francis will be joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Dr Iain Greenshields. This has never happened before and offers a powerful ecumenical witness. 

When the papal plane arrives in Juba, the archbishop and the moderator will make their way onto the aircraft and greet the Pope. Their time in Juba will be spent doing joint events and appealing to the country’s leaders to take concrete steps for peace. 

Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister, told me that the Pope would bring a message of hope and reconciliation but will lay down a “very demanding” challenge to the political leadership.

 

The visit comes four years after a retreat in the Vatican for the country’s leaders led by Archbishop Welby. At the end of that retreat, the Pope made a dramatic appeal for peace by kneeling to kiss the leaders’ feet.