Bless my sole, Francis!
South Sudan’s feuding leaders stunned as Pope kisses their feet
POPE Francis knelt and kissed the feet of South Sudan’s rival leaders in an unprecedented act of humility to encourage them to strengthen the African country’s faltering peace process.
At the closed two-day retreat in the Vatican for the African leaders, the Pope asked South Sudan’s president and opposition leader to proceed with the peace agreement, despite growing difficulties.
Onlookers appeared to be stunned as the 82-year-old pope, who suffers from chronic leg pain, was helped by aides as he knelt to kiss the shoes of the leaders and several other people in the room.
The Pope usually holds a ritual washing of the feet with prisoners on Holy Thursday, but has never performed such a show of deference to political leaders.
‘I express my heartfelt hope that hostilities will finally cease, that the armistice will be respected, that political and ethnic divisions will be surmounted, and that there will be a lasting peace,’ the Pope said. The spiritual retreat brought together South Sudan president Salva Kiir and opposition head Riek Machar. Also present were Kiir’s three vice-presidents. The Pope kissed the feet of all of them.
South Sudanese vice-president Rebecca Nyandeng Garang said Francis’s actions moved her profoundly.
‘I had never seen anything like that. Tears were flowing from my eyes,’ she said.
South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 but two years later the country plunged into a bloody civil war, which left at least 400,000 people dead.
news@dailymail.ie