Central African Republic hears pope’s wish for peace
BANGUI, Central African Republic — Flanked by Vatican bodyguards in flak jackets and machine-guntoting U.N. peacekeepers, Pope Francis plunged Sunday into the conflictwracked Central African Republic and urged the country’s Christian and Muslim factions to lay down their weapons and arm themselves with peace and forgiveness.
Francis issued the appeal from the altar of Bangui’s cathedral after arriving in the badly divided capital on the final leg of his three-nation African tour.
Girls dressed in the yellow and white of the Holy See flag and women wearing traditional African fabric dresses emblazoned with the pope’s face joined government and church authorities to welcome Francis at Bangui airport amid tight security.
Cheering crowds lined his motorcade route, about 3 miles of it in his opensided popemobile. The crowds swelled again at a displacement camp, where children sang him songs and held up handmade signs saying “Peace,” “Love” and “Unity.”
“My wish for you, and for all Central Africans, is peace,” Francis told the nearly 4,000 residents in the St. Sauveur church camp. With the help of a translator of Sango, the country’s national language, he then led them in a chant: “We are all brothers. We are all brothers.”
Sunday’s visit was a rare moment of jubilation in the Central African Republic, where Muslim rebels overthrew the Christian president in early 2013, ushering in a brutal reign that led to a swift and horrific backlash against Muslim civilians when the rebel leader left power the following year.
Throughout the early months of 2014, mobs attacked Muslims in the streets, even decapitating and dismembering them and setting their corpses ablaze. Tens of thousands of Muslim civilians fled to neighboring Chad and Cameroon. Today, the capital that once had 122,000 Muslims has only around 15,000, according to Human Rights Watch.
While ecstatic crowds celebrated the pope’s visit and message of reconciliation, thousands of Muslims remained essentially blockaded in their neighborhood, unable to leave because armed Christian militia fighters surround its perimeter.
Francis plans to enter this highly volatile neighborhood Monday to meet with the local imam and Muslims in the mosque before returning to Rome.
In his inaugural Mass on Sunday night, Francis reminded the faithful that their primary vocation was to love their enemy.
“To all those who unjustly use weapons in this world, I appeal: Put down your weapons of death; arm yourselves instead with justice, love, mercy and authentic guarantees of peace,” he said to applause.
Welcoming Francis at the presidential palace, Interim President Catherine Samba-Panza thanked him for his “lesson in courage” in simply coming, saying his presence showed the “victory of faith over fear.”
In a nod to Francis’ appeal for personal soulsearching, she offered a public confession.
“In the name of the entire governing class of this country and also in the name of all those who have contributed in some way to its descent into hell, I confess all the evil that has been done here over history and ask forgiveness from the bottom of my heart,” she said.
In response, Francis told her he was here as a “pilgrim of peace, an apostle of hope” and that he hoped elections scheduled for next month would enable the conflict-torn country to begin a new phase.
Adding to the joy of Francis’ arrival was a twohour extension to 10 p.m. of a nightly curfew to accommodate the prayer vigil Francis celebrated Sunday night at the cathedral.
“For two years we have been crying,” said Merline Bambou, 24. “We hope the visit of the pope will change things for the better.”
In an amazing sight outside the cathedral before Francis arrived, a lone Muslim wearing a white robe and traditional Muslim cap toted a sign reading “One God. One Earth. Same Ancestor.”