Greg DalyGreg Daly explores the themes and events of Pope Francis’ first African trip
The Year of Mercy has begun. “I have decided to call an extraordinary Jubilee that is to have the mercy of God at is centre,” announced Pope Francis on the second anniversary of his becoming Pope, explaining that the Holy Year of Mercy would begin this December on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and would end on the Feast of Christ the King in November 2016.
Since then the details of the Jubilee have been increasingly clear, with the opening of St Peter’s Holy Door on December 8 to be followed by the openings of other Holy Doors at the basilicas of St John Lateran, St Mary Major, and St Paul’s Outside the Walls.
All this, however, was pre-empted on November 29 when the Pope flung open the Holy Door of Bangui’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in the Central African Republic.
“Today Bangui becomes the spiritual capital of the world,” he said, declaring, “The Holy Year of Mercy comes in advance to this land.”
Describing the war-torn country as emblematic of “all the countries that are experiencing the cross of war”, he said the country was thus the spiritual capital of prayer for God’s mercy. “We all ask for peace, mercy, reconciliation, forgiveness and love,” he said, continuing, “for Bangui and for all the Central African Republic, for all the world, for countries that suffer war, we ask for peace. Let us all ask together for love and peace!”
Bigger point
The Pontiff’s visit to the Central African Republic may have been, as widely reported, the first time a modern Pope has visited an active warzone, but in hailing Bangui as the world’s spiritual capital, and in beginning the Year of Mercy there ahead of its official beginning in Rome, he underlined a perhaps even bigger point, one that the slowly changing composition of the College of Cardinals and the Synod of Bishops have been gradually reflecting.
If asked to sum up the history of the Catholic Church in the 20th Century in one sentence, veteran Vatican-watcher John Allen has said he would answer by saying: “The centre of gravity shifted from North to South.” If demography is destiny, as often claimed, this seems undeniable.
The Faith may well be ebbing in its historical European heartland, at least to judge by raw numbers, but it is flowing and flowing powerfully in sub-Saharan Africa: in 1900 there were fewer than two million Catholics in the region, but by 2000 there were more than 130 million, and it is currently thought that there are least 160 million. Within 25 years, according to Georgetown University’s Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate, sub-Saharan Africa could be home to as many as 460 million Catholics.
With Africa set to play a more important part in the global Church than any point since the days of St Augustine in the twilight of the Roman Empire, it seemed appropriate that in addressing a gathering of dignitaries in Entebbe during the central Ugandan part of his African trip, the Holy Father referred to Africa as “the continent of hope”. In visiting the continent, he said, he wished “to draw attention to Africa as a whole, its promise, its hopes, its struggles and its achievements”.
Pope Francis first speech in Africa, an address to Kenya’s diplomatic corps at his official welcome ceremony in the State House of Nairobi, saw him mapping out such major themes of his visit as the environmental crisis, poverty and development, and social and religious divisions. Highlighting his desire to meet Kenya’s young people he described the young as “any nation’s most valuable resource”, and the best hope for perpetuating the values of their elders, which he called “the very heart and soul of a people”.
Emphasising the importance of the pursuit of the common good as a primary goal when building democratic, respectful and cohesive societies, he said that “experience shows that violence, conflict and terrorism feed on fear, mistrust and the despair born of poverty and frustration,” continuing, “ultimately, the struggle against these enemies of peace and prosperity must be carried on by men and women who fearlessly believe in, and bear honest witness to, the great spiritual and political values which inspired the birth of the nation.”
In greeting the Pope, President Uluru Kenyatta had said that the Church is a strong partner of the Kenyan state in education and development, and closing his address Pope Francis assured Kenya’s leaders of “the continued efforts of the Catholic community, through its educational and charitable works, to offer its specific contribution in these areas”.
The following day saw Pope Francis meeting and addressing various interreligious and ecumenical representatives, where he thanked them for their presence, saying, “It is my hope that our time together may be a sign of the Church’s esteem for the followers of all religions”.
Admitting that relationships across religious divides are challenging, he nonetheless stressed that they are necessary. “Yet ecumenical and interreligious dialogue is not a luxury,” he said, continuing, “it is not something extra or optional, but essential, something which our world, wounded by conflict and division, increasingly needs.”
Religious violence is, he stressed, a betrayal of what religion is and what it can and should offer to the world. Stressing the common conviction that “the God whom we seek to serve is a God of peace”, he insisted that his name should never be used to justify hatred and violence.
“I know that the barbarous attacks on Westgate Mall, Garissa University College and Mandera are fresh in your minds,” he continued, lamenting how “all too often, young people are being radicalised in the name of religion to sow discord and fear, and to tear at the very fabric of our societies.”
Important
It is vitally important, he said, that religious leaders be seen as “prophets of peace, peacemakers who invite others to live in peace, harmony and mutual respect”, reaffirming how, on the 50th anniversary of the closure of the Second Vatican Council, the Church is committed to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue in the service of understanding of friendship. This commitment, he said, “is born of our conviction of the universality of God’s love and the salvation which he offers to all”.
Given April’s terrorist attack on the campus of the University of Garissa, in which 148 people were killed, there was an extra resonance to the Mass the Holy Father celebrated on the campus of the University of Nairobi.
Reassuring the gathered students that “today God tells us that we belong to him”, the Pope reminded them that “he made us, we are his family, and he will always be there for us”.
Kenyan society has long been blessed with strong family life, he said, marked both by a deep respect for the wisdom of the elderly and by love for children, with the health of any society always depending on the health of its families. “For their sake, and for the good of society, our faith in God’s word calls us to support families in their mission in society, to accept children as a blessing for our world, and to defend the dignity of each man and woman,” he said, “for all of us are brothers and sisters in the one human family.”
Warning against “the growth of new deserts created by a culture of materialism, selfishness and indifference to others”, he pointed out that in obedience to God’s word we are called “to resist practices which foster arrogance in men, hurt or demean women, do not look after the elderly and threaten the life of the innocent unborn” as well as “to respect and encourage one another, and to reach out to all those in need”.
He urged the gathered crowd always to be concerned for the needs of the poor, and to “reject everything that leads to prejudice and discrimination, for these things, we know, are not of God”.
His subsequent visit to the United Nations’ African headquarters saw the Pope give an important address on the environment, directed as much to the politicians and diplomats gathering in Paris for the United Nations Climate Change Conference as to those gathered before him. In a lengthy speech on the crisis facing the world, the Pope warned of the danger of treating wordy aspirations as achievements in their own right, and said it would be “catastrophic” if special interests were to prevail over the good of the planet and humanity as a whole.
Friday morning began with the Pope visiting Nairobi’s Kangemi neighbourhood, a slum where over 100,000 people live in poverty. At the Church of St Joseph the Worker he met members of the Jesuits’ East African province, and addressed the gathered crowds, beginning by asking how, when he understands the difficulties they face each day, he could do other than denounce the injustices they suffer.
Nonetheless, he said, they possess a special gift which others all too often disregard or ignore. The “wisdom found in poor neighbourhoods”, he said, is born of hard lives and “from Gospel values which an opulent society, anaesthetised by unbridled consumption, would seem to have forgotten”.
The poor, he said, citing his own encyclical Laudato Si’, are able “to weave bonds of belonging and togetherness which convert overcrowding into an experience of community in which the walls of the ego are torn down and the barriers of selfishness overcome”.
At a meeting with youths at Kasarani stadium he reminded those gathered that we live on Earth, rather than in Heaven, and as such must choose how we face the difficulties and invitations to evil life will place before us.
“Are you like sportsmen who, when they come to play here in the stadium, want to win,” he asked, “or are you like those who have already sold the victory to others or have put the victory in their pocket? It is for you to choose.”
After meeting the country’s bishops at Kasarani stadium and a farewell ceremony at the city’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport he flew to Entebbe for the second, Ugandan, leg of the trip. There he might have been expected to tackle such “hot-button” issues as homosexuality and contraception, but neither issue came up, although the latter was raised on his final flight back to Rome.
Asked on the flight whether it was time for the Church to change its position with regard to the use of condoms to prevent infections, notably HIV-AIDS, he said the question struck him as biased, likening it to pharisaical attempts to catch Jesus out by asking whether it was acceptable to heal people on the Sabbath. Explaining that the question appears to present a conflict between the demands of the fifth and sixth commandments, he said “I don’t like making such casuistic reflections when there are people dying because of a lack of water and hunger.” Africa’s biggest and most urgent problems, he said, are social injustice, malnutrition and exploitation.
In Entebbe the Pontiff visited the president in the State House and addressed Ugandan authorities and members of the diplomatic corps before meeting catechists and teachers at Munyonyo, thanking them for their “holy work” in teaching “what Jesus taught”.
Pope Francis’ call for catechists to be witnesses to their faith was echoed the following day when he visited the Anglican and Catholic martyrs’ shrines at Namugongo, celebrating Mass with around half a million people near the latter. The martyrs, who Blessed Paul VI canonised in 1964, were executed in the late 19th Century on the orders of King Mwanga II.
Recalling in his homily how the deaths of the 23 Anglican martyrs, as well as the 22 Catholics, testify to an “ecumenism of blood”, the Pope returned to themes from his Kasarani address and called upon those gathered to be “missionary disciples” who would fan the flame of the Holy Spirit in their hearts and share the gifts of that Holy Spirit. The Spirit, he said, is a gift we receive not for ourselves alone, but “to build up one another in faith, hope and love”.
Speaking later to young people in an unscripted address at Kampala’s Kololo airstrip, he encouraged them to use prayer so as to allow Jesus to transform negative experiences in their lives. “If I transform the negative into positive, I am triumphant,” he said, continuing, “But this can only be done with the grace of Jesus.”
Seminarians
After visiting the Nalukolongo House of Charity that afternoon, and meeting the country’s bishops and addressing its priests, religious and seminarians at the local cathedral that evening, the Pope retired for the night before flying to the Central African Republic the next day for the final leg of his trip.
After the usual address to dignitaries in Bangui, the Pope visited a refugee camp, an appropriate choice given the turmoil that has seen a third of the country’s population displaced since 2012, reminding all there that “we are all brothers”, and then met with the country’s bishops.
That afternoon he met with and spoke to evangelical communities at Bangui’s evangelical theological school, a suitably ecumenical move given how one of the three “Saints of Bangui”, to use the term deployed by Le Monde, is Rev. Nicolas Guerekoyame-Gbangou, president of the country’s Evangelical Alliance.
Rev. Guerekoyame-Gbangou, along with Bangui’s Archbishop Diedonné Nzapalainga and the Islamic Council’s president Imam Oumar Kobine Layama, visited Pope Francis last year and implored him to visit the war-torn country, stressing that although the conflict plaguing their land is along broadly religious lines, it is by no means a religious conflict.
Pope Francis celebrated Mass at the city’s cathedral afterwards, hearing confessions from some young people, and began a prayer vigil outside the cathedral before ending his day, knowing that the following day, when he met with members of the country’s Muslim community at Bangui’s Koudoukou mosque, the world would be listening.
“Christians and Muslims,” he began, “are brothers and sisters.” Calling on Christians and Muslims to recognise this and act accordingly, he said that we all know that recent acts of violence have not been grounded in properly religious motives, and that “Those who claim to believe in God must also be men and women of peace.
“Together, we must say no to hatred, to revenge and to violence, particularly that violence which is perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God himself,” he said, before departing for a final Mass at the Barthelemy Boganda Stadium where he reminded all those present that we have not reached our destination.
“In a certain sense we are in midstream, needing the courage to decide, with renewed missionary zeal, to pass to the other shore,” he said. While our Christian communities, he said, still have a long way to go, there is no cause for despair.
“The other shore is at hand,” he said, “and Jesus is crossing the river with us.”