Reconstruction of blast-damaged Beirut church brings hope

Juba, South Sudan, Apr 11, 2017 / 12:29 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The president of the Sudanese Catholic Bishops’ Conference called on leaders in South Sudan’s Bahr El Ghazal region to fight segregation and division, uniting to work for peace in the violence-ridden country.

Achieving peace, said Bishop Barani Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio, “demands of all of us that we act with real respect for human life. It demands that those who still sponsor anger, hate, segregation and violence against one another end such meaningless projects or ideas.”

On April 6, Bishop Kussala published “An Open Letter of Hope and Peace to the Elders of Greater Bahr El Ghazal.”

His letter marked one month since the death of Bishop Rudolf Deng Majak of the Catholic diocese of Wau, which is part of the Bahr El Ghazal region of South Sudan. The 76-year-old bishop died March 6 at a relative’s house in Siegburg, Germany, where he was awaiting an operation that had been scheduled for the following week.

“The wound inflicted by his death remains deep and raw and so, as we pray for him, we carry in prayer those for whom his death has left a painful void,” Bishop Kussala said.

He appealed to the elders of the greater Bahr El Ghazal area to work for peace and alleviate suffering in Bishop Deng’s memory.

“The best gift we can give him forever is being part of the reconstruction, reconciliation, and reintegration, regeneration of our country, ravaged by the war waged by us and against ourselves.”

Working to change the spiral of suffering, revenge killings, hatred and displacement is a difficult task, Bishop Kussala acknowledged.

“It demands new initiatives to move Greater Bahr El Ghazal and our country forward to freedom as quickly as possible. With this letter I am indeed consulting leaders of civil society, religious leaders, community organizations, business, cultural and other leaders in Greater Bahr El Ghazal to seize an opportunity on such initiatives.”

South Sudan has been embroiled in civil war since December 2013, when South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy, Riek Machar, of attempting a coup. The war has been fought between their supporters, largely along ethnic lines, and peace agreements have been short-lived.

The conflict has created more than 2.5 million refugees. At present some 4.5 million people face severe food insecurity, a number expected to rise one million by July.

“At the core of the crisis within South Sudan’s war-affected communities and regions is the desire to acquire power and secure resources for one group of elites or one ethno-national group at the expense of others,” Bishop Kussala said.

This has created tension and division, and “has undermined the social fabric of our society or nation,” even affecting neighboring countries as refugees seeking the escape the conflict flee to other nations.

“In all of these cases, violence has led to the breakdown of our beloved homes,” Bishop Kussala continued. “Human lives have been lost. Infrastructure has been destroyed, education and health services have suffered, and the environment has been damaged. The ties that link people together…have been broken, social solidarity has collapsed and political tension has been highly generated.”

These conflicts arise from self-interested elites who take advantage of past divisions, the bishop said. However, peace is possible, as evidence by the “relative peace, development and economic growth after our national independence shortly in 2011.”

In an efforts to restore this stability, Bishop Kussala called on the elders of Greater Bahr El Ghazal to “engage all stakeholders” in seeking peace, allowing for dialogue and supporting genuine efforts aimed at reconciliation and healing.

He urged the elders to publically and unequivocally condemn revenge killings, violence against civilians and the use of hate speech which fosters tribal division.

In addition, he said, they should “call urgently for immediate robust humanitarian intervention for the starving people in and outside Wau,” pushing for roads to be opened to aid workers delivering food for the hungry population.

Efforts are needed both to prevent further killings and to foster reconciliation and healing in society, the bishop said. He also recommended an independent investigation into atrocities against the community, in order to hold perpetrators accountable.

In solving these problems, it is important to remember the role of culture, Bishop Kussala said.

“People derive their sense of meaning from their culture…Cultural attitudes and values…provide the foundation for the social norms by which you as a people exist and live,” he noted. “Through internalizing and sharing these cultural attitudes and values with fellow community members, and by handing them down to future generations, societies can – and do – re-construct themselves on the basis of a particular cultural image.”

Achieving peace in Wau State will require an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, repentance and an offering of forgiveness, the bishop said. It will also require “a way for members of these communities to ‘re-inform’ themselves of their rich history of co-existence with a cultural logic that emphasizes sharing and equitable resource distribution.”

“The people of Greater Bahr El Ghazal should draw their strength from each other as one people,” he emphasized. “You have common humanity, heritage, history and you are socially interwoven.”

“For Wau State to live and prosper, we must come together!”

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Cairo, Egypt, Jan 7, 2020 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt attended a Coptic Orthodox Liturgy Monday, praising cooperation between the Christians and Muslims of the country.

“God saw fit for us to live in difficult circumstances…. But as long as we’re together … no one can do anything to us,” the AP reported him saying Jan. 6 at a Liturgy celebrated by Tawadros II, Coptic Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria, at the Cathedral of the Nativity in Egypt’s new administrative capital, about 40 miles east of Cairo.

The liturgy celebrated Christmas Eve, as Christmas in the Coptic calendar falls Jan. 7 in the Gregorian calendar. Sisi has made a tradition in recent years of attending Liturgy for Christmas Eve among the Copts.

According to the US Commission for International Religious Freedom, Egypt’s religious freedom conditions “generally trended in a more positive direction related to high-level official discourse and actions” in 2018, while “persistent challenges at the community level and a poor, broader human rights situation remained consistent with recent years.”

In the past year, Sisi’s government has seen both a Coptic activist arrested on terrorism-related charges, and the sentencing of 30 men for planning to bomb a church in Alexandria.

USCIRF said in its 2019 report that Sisi has “heightened the inclusion of religious tolerance in public discourse” and has encouraged “the inclusion of churches in plans for new urban developments and calling for wider freedom of belief and worship.”

The commission also said that “the government’s initial effort to combat Islamist violence and ideology has evolved into a more general and severe crackdown on all perceived dissent or criticism toward the country’s leadership.”

Human rights activists in recent years have warned repeatedly that Christians in Egypt are enduring persecution and violence from Muslim groups, and the government has neglected to act.

The country has seen a number of attacks on churches in recent years, motivated in part by a call from the Islamic State.

Sisi has in the past deployed armed forces to help guard important installations and churches across Egypt.

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