Million attend pope’s Mass in war-torn Congo
KINSHASA, Congo — Pope Francis on Wednesday urged Congo's people to forgive those who committed “inhuman violence” against them, celebrating a Mass for 1 million people and then hearing firsthand of the atrocities some of them have endured: a teen-age girl “raped like an animal” for months; a young man who watched as his father was decapitated; a former sex slave who was forced into cannibalism.
Congolese from the country's violence-wracked east traveled to the capital of Kinshasa to tell the pope of the horrific violence they suffered for years as rebel groups sought territory in the mineralrich region through attacks that have forced more than 5 million people to flee their homes.
Francis sat in silence as victim after victim came forward to tell their stories. He watched as they offered up at the foot of a crucifix a symbol of their pain: the machete used to maim and kill, or the straw bed mat on which they had been raped. When they knelt in front of him for a blessing, Francis placed his hand on their heads, or on the stumps of the arms that remained.
“Your tears are my tears; your pain is my pain,” Francis told them. “To every family that grieves or is displaced by the burning of villages and other war crimes, to the survivors of sexual violence and to every injured child and adult, I say: I am with you; I want to bring you God's caress.”
The intimate encounter at the Vatican Embassy in Kinshasa was an extraordinary moment of a pastor seeking to console his flock, and of a pope seeking to shine a spotlight on what Francis has called a “forgotten genocide” that barely makes the news. Despite being home to one of the largest U.N. peacekeeping operation in the world, eastern Congo has been mired in violence since the early 1990s as rebels and militas vie for control of mineralrich territory.
“What a scandal and what hypocrisy, as people are being raped and killed, while the commerce that causes this violence and death continues to flourish!” Francis said of the foreign powers and extraction industries that are exploiting Congo's east. “Enough!”
Francis had originally planned to visit the eastern province of North Kivu, where rebel groups have intensified attacks in the past year, when his trip was initially scheduled for July.
But after the trip was rescheduled, the Vatican had to cancel the visit to Goma due to the fighting that has forced some 5.7 million people to flee their homes, exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in Congo, where 26.4 million people face hunger, according to the World Food Program.
Instead, residents of the east came to Francis, and their testimony was gut-wrenching.
Francis condemned the violence and urged the Congolese victims to use their pain for good, to sow peace and reconciliation. It was a message he also delivered earlier in the day at a Mass to the throngs at Kinshasa's Ndolo airport, where he cited the example of Christ who forgave those who betrayed him.
Roughly half of Congo's 105 million people are Catholic, according to the Vatican, which also estimated that 1 million people were on hand for Francis' Mass.