Africans desperate to see Pope Francis, Millions gathered for one glimpse; see pics
Key takeaways:
- Dancing and huge crowds as Pope Francis visits DR Congo.
Pope Francis had one of his most enormous masses in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa.
Pope Francis visits Africa:
It is almost 37 years since a pope visited the mineral-rich but conflict-ridden nation.
Calculations say about a million assembled for the open-air gathering at N’dole airport on the second of the pope’s six-day visit to Africa.
Almost half of DR Congo’s people are Catholic – Africa’s most prominent Catholic community.
Addressing the mass, the Catholic leader asked for a truce in DR Congo, saying warring sides should forgive one another and give their opponents a “great pardon of the heart”.
He espouses the advantages of purifying one’s heart of “anger and guilt, of every trace of bitterness and hatred”.
Wednesday’s mass was listed as one of the pope’s largest-ever masses, second greatest to one had in the Philippines in 2014, according to Christopher Lamb, the Rome journalist of the Catholic magazine The Tablet.
In an interview with the BBC’s Newsday radio, he expressed Catholicism was increasing in Africa: “This is the fate of the church, and the evolution of the Catholic Church in Africa is so critical to the future of Catholicism.”
Pope Francis delivers a speech on Africa:
On Tuesday, the pope visited President Félix Tshisekedi and gave a speech denouncing the historical exploitation of Africa’s resources, which he defined as “financial colonialism”.
He even addressed DR Congo’s dilemma, as minerals have played a pivotal role in almost thirty years of the armed row there:
“Hands off the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Hands off, Africa! Stop blocking Africa; it is not a mine to be stripped or a landscape to be plundered.”
However, a scheduled visit to the eastern city of Goma has been revoked for safety reasons. The east area of DR Congo is facing escalating brutality as security services combat armed militia bodies.
