Pope Francis
calls Africa the “continent of hope” during visit to Uganda.
KAMPALA, Uganda — Pope Francis arrived Friday in Uganda on the second leg of his Africa pilgrimage, declaring Africa the “continent of hope” and honoring Uganda’s most famous Christians.
Francis arrived from Kenya at Entebbe International Airport, where he was welcomed by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a military brass band, traditional drummers and dancers gyrating their hips.
Francis is in Uganda to honor the memory of a group of Ugandan Christians who were killed in the late 19th century on the orders of a local king eager to thwart the growing influence of Christianity.
Those victims, known as the Uganda Martyrs, include 45 Anglicans and Catholics killed between 1885 and 1887. Pope Paul VI canonized the 22 Ugandan Catholics in 1964.
“They remind us of the importance that faith, moral rectitude and commitment to the common good have played, and continue to play, in the cultural, economic and political life of this country,” Francis told Museveni and other Ugandan authorities and diplomats at a welcome ceremony at the statehouse.
In an unusual break with papal trip protocol, Museveni didn’t offer welcoming remarks.
Francis arrived in Kampala after a busy final day in Kenya highlighted by his visit to one of the capital’s 11 slums.
In the Kangemi shanty, Francis denounced conditions slumdwellers are forced to live in.
“To deny a family water, under any bureaucratic pretext whatsoever, is a great injustice, especially when one profits from this need,” he said.
Residents lined the mud streets to welcome Francis, standing alongside goats and hens outside the corrugated tin-roof shacks.
Francis denounced the practice of private corporations grabbing land illegally, depriving schools of their playgrounds and forcing the poor into ever more tightly packed slums, where violence and addiction are rampant.
In January, police tear-gassed schoolchildren demonstrating against the removal of their school’s playground, which has been allegedly grabbed by powerful people. After an outcry, the Kenyan government declared the playground the property of the school.
“These are wounds inflicted by minorities who cling to power and wealth, who selfishly squander while a growing majority is forced to flee to abandoned, filthy and run-down peripheries,” Francis said.
His message was welcomed by residents of Kangemi, who said the city only pipes in water three days a week, Tuesday through Thursday, but it’s not safe to drink.
After the visit to Kangemi, Francis received a rock-star welcome at Kasarani stadium, where he zoomed around the track in his open-sided popemobile to the delight of thousands of young Kenyans in the crowd.
Francis ditched his prepared speech and spoke off-the-cuff, talking about problems Kenyan young people are facing, including the temptation to go the way of Kenya’s many corrupt officials and institutions or to go off and join an extremist group.
Francis told the crowd that the way to prevent the young from being radicalized is to give them an education and a job.
“If a young person has no work, what kind of a future does he or she have? That’s where the idea of being recruited comes from,” he said.
Francis also urged the kids to resist the temptation of corruption, saying it’s like sugar: You develop a taste for it but it’s ultimately terrible for you.
On Sunday, he is due to arrive in the Central African Republic.