Tour of Africa: focusing on the resumption of the peace process, the Pope asked the bishops of South Sudan to “get their hands dirty with this suffering people”

After obtaining the formal promise of the president of South Sudan, Salva Kiir, that he will lift the blockade that keeps the peace process frozen and will sit down to find an agreement with the resistance groups, the Pope said this Saturday morning to the bishops and other religious who listened to him in the cathedral of Santa Teresa in the capital, Juba, who they must “get their hands dirty with this suffering people”.

President Kiir’s decision of resume the peace process which he himself blocked achieves a greater goal than the joint ecumenical journey, the first in the history of Christianity, of the Argentine Pope with the Anglican and Presbyterian leaders of the Church of Scotland who accompany him, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Scottish moderator Iain Greenshields.

In South Sudan, which seceded from the Protestant-majority Sudan in 2011, 70% of the 12 million inhabitants are of the Christian faith. Catholics (40%), Anglican and Presbyterian, constitute the most numerous religions.

“In honor of the Holy Father’s historic visit to our country and our declaration of 2023 as the Year of Peace and Reconciliation,” the president officially announced the lifting of the suspension of peace talks with resistance groups.

In his first speech after arriving in Juba, the capital, on a three-day tour that will conclude on Sunday at noon with a farewell and return to Rome, the Pope told South Sudanese rulers and politicians: “It has come the time to say enough, without conditions and without buts. No more bloodshed, no more conflicts, no more aggression. We must put the wartime behind us and promote a time of peace, giving new impetus to the peace process.”

This Saturday, in the meeting in the cathedral of Santa Teresa, the Pope met the bishops and other religious: Francis told them that their first duty is to “get their hands dirty with this suffering people”.

Francis remembered them “the tears of a people immersed in suffering and pain, martyred by violence”after two years of war that caused more than four hundred thousand deaths and a devastating food crisis.

The United Nations estimates that 75% of South Sudanese survive thanks to food and medical aid that arrives from humanitarian organizations abroad.

Referring to the Nile, the Argentine pontiff said that “the waters of the great river gather the heartbreaking cry of your community, the cry of pain for so many lives destroyed, the drama of a fleeing people, the affliction of women’s hearts and the fear imprinted in the eyes of children.

“At the same time, the waters of the great river evoke the story of Moses and, therefore, are a sign of liberation and salvation,” he added.

The Pope warned the religious not to think “that the answers to people’s suffering and needs can be given with human tools, such as money, cunning and power”, but that “docility” is necessary.

“Before the Good Shepherd we will understand that we are not the leaders of a tribe, but compassionate and merciful shepherds; that we are not the masters of the city but servants inclined to wash the feet of our brothers and sisters; that we are not a worldly organization that administers earthly goods, but the community of God’s children», Francis reminded them.

“Our first duty is not to be a perfectly organized Church, but a Church that, in the name of Christ, stands in the midst of people’s painful lives and gets its hands dirty for the people,” he said.

One must not “exercise the ministry in search of religious and social prestige, but walking among and together learning to listen and dialogue, collaborating among us ministers and with the laity”, added the pontiff.

Jorge Bergoglio urged them to “intercede In favor of our people, we too are called to raise our voice against the injustice and abuse of power that crush people and use violence to carry out their businesses in the shadow of conflicts”.

In the afternoon the Pope plans to meet the delegations of the millions of internally displaced peoplearrivals above all from the east of the country where constant violence by 120 armed groupswhich forced him for security reasons to cancel his planned visit to the city of Goma.

The Pope is accompanied in the meeting with the displaced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, leader of the Anglican Church, and by the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Iain Greeshield.

His last speech of the day is an ecumenical prayer with his companions of the first Ecumenical Way that can be remembered in the history of Christianity.

Vatican correspondent