Vatican City, Mar 23, 2018 / 12:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Friday an ecumenical delegation from South Sudan met privately with Pope Francis and again invited him to visit the war-torn nation, which they said is in desperate need of hope as the situation becomes more dire.
“We are here as an ecumenical body…we came as Christians to show that the body of Christ is bleeding,” Bishop Paride Tabani told CNA March 23.
The people, he said, “[need] hope. They need healing, they are crying for peace, which cannot be brought by arms, but by love, by a sense of compassion, a spirit of love and forgiveness which God has shown to us, especially now.”
“We would like that this Easter would also be a resurrection of people from their suffering.”
Tabani, Bishop Emeritus of Torit in South Sudan, was part of a 9-person delegation from the Council of Churches of South Sudan (SSCC) who met the pope in a private March 23 audience at the Vatican.
Members of the delegation included bishops and leaders of different Christian denominations in South Sudan, including Catholics, Anglicans and Presbyterians, among others. They updated Pope Francis on several joint initiatives of the council to provide humanitarian aid and prompt international leaders to intervene in finding a solution to the conflict.
In a March 23 press briefing after the meeting, Rev. James Oyet Latansio, secretary of the SSCC, described the meeting as “familiar,” and said they sat and talked with each other about a variety of issues.
South Sudan has been plagued by civil war for more than four years. The conflict has split the young nation on several fronts, dividing those loyal to its President Salva Kiir and those loyal to former vice president Reik Machar. The conflict has also bred various divisions of militia and opposition groups.
Discussion at the Vatican meeting focused largely on the humanitarian crisis and the situation of the more than 2 million South Sudanese refugees who have fled to surrounding countries, as well as the need to fill the post of deceased bishops, some whose dioceses have been vacant for years.
They also touched on when a possible papal trip might take place. Francis had intended to visit the war-torn nation last year alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. However, the trip was postponed due to security concerns.
According to the delegation, the pope expressed a strong desire to go, but gave no specific date.
In his comments to CNA, Bishop Tabani said the pope “is willing to go, but there have been negative reports and even in the Vatican…they told him the situation is not so good.”
According to Tabani, the situation on the ground is so desperate that people are nearly begging the pope to come as a sign of hope and consolation. He said that during their meeting, he reminded Francis how St. John Paul II in 1993 visited Khartoum in the midst of a violent genocide.
“That gave hope to the people, and then people became very courageous,” Tabani said, adding that with more than 2 million people are living as refugees, now is the time for another papal visit.
“People are dying from hunger, the economic situation is really bad…the people are eager to have consolation, and they are asking ‘when will the Pope come?’” he said, explaining that in the meeting, Pope Francis told the delegation that “my heart is bleeding for the people in South Sudan,” and asked them to pray that the conditions would change, allowing him to come.
More than 2 million civilians have fled the country in the four years since violence broke out. Neighboring Uganda has so far taken in more than 1 million refugees from South Sudan, leaving resources strained.
In comments to CNA, Archbishop John Baptist Odama of Guru, Uganda, who was also part of the ecumenical delegation that met the Pope, said the situation is out of control. Many people had to flee with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and the majority of refugees, who face a worsening humanitarian crisis, are women, children and elderly.
“You have the youth who don’t have enough food, they don’t have enough medical support. What they get is the minimum. Some have died of malaria, some have died from other things like cholera, and then they don’t have the facilities to prepare the children for the future, education,” he said.
Odama, whose diocese is home to some two million refugees, said the Ugandan government is willing to help and has pitched in with some NGOs, but lacks the resources to sustain the increasing influx of refugees while also supporting their own citizens who live in poverty.
In northern Uganda near the West Nile area, there are more than 300,000 people living in one camp, he said, explaining that this area “is the most difficult, because the government of Uganda has found itself in a certain level that it cannot afford, because its resources are also limited.”
“So to care for its own citizens and at the same time for refugees, it becomes very heavy. This is where the biggest challenge is.”
Both Bishop Tabani and Archbishop Odama voiced gratitude to Pope Francis for holding the Feb. 23 day of prayer and fasting for peace in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Syria.
They also asked that the pope appoint more bishops, because many bishops have died and none have been re-appointed. Tabani, who retired early to launch a project aimed at providing education to refugees and promoting peaceful coexistence, said his successor died five years ago and has not been replaced.
Tabini said that upon hearing their requests, Pope Francis did not immediately make any promises or guarantees. “He just listened,” the bishop said, adding that “it’s good to be a good listener…this is what I like.”
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Speaking interreligiously, the difference between fading Christianity and the rise of ISIS zealotry from within Islam is the revealed doctrine of original sin. Three points:
FIRST. this complex doctrine as examined by Ratzinger/Benedict in “An Introduction to Christianity”:
“Terms like original sin, resurrection of the body, Last Judgment, and so on, are only understood at all from this angle, for the seat of original sin is to be sought precisely in this collective net [!] that precedes the individual existence [!] as a sort of spiritual datum, not in any biological legacy passed on between utterly separated individuals. Talk of original sin means just this, that no man can start from scratch any more in a status intigritatis (completely unimpaired by history).”
SECOND, his meaning is, that for each and all of us, we all begin “within the framework of the already existing whole of human life [together!] that stamps and molds him.”
But Islam “start[s] from scratch” without either original sin or history, by dismissing even the era in Arabia prior to Muhammad as “the days of ignorance.” Likewise, in the West (!) we also disconnect and disintegrate into a resentful and post-progressive menagerie of superficial half-truths and worse–cancel-culture “ignorance,” mere intersectionality, and tribal identity politics. Where for Christians however, and as Benedict explains, God stands at both the beginning and at end of the totality of our entangling human history and situation: that is, before the “net” of radical Fallenness, and in the Giftedness of Redemption and Resurrection (Alpha and Omega, both).
THIRD, therefore, each person’s real dignity is found our spiritual and personal struggle–rather than in any accommodation (!) with a fallen world (e.g., by synodally undefining even morality?); or any un-accommodation (!) of our universal human community (e.g., under cultic jihad by ISIS). In our compact world a durable and lasting Fraternity depends, therefore, upon a complete understanding of our shared human nature and, ultimately, upon the reality of the incarnate and whole Jesus Christ.
All politics are ultimately theological…
Ethics and Islam are far apart. Though referred to as “the Religion of Peace”, if the designation wasn’t so unbelievable, it would be laughable. The true God of the Bible enjoins the believer to peace. It is a challenge at times, yet this is how we are to conduct our lives. Peace, not slaughtering our neighbours or those who disagree with us.
Psalm 11:5 The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
Romans 14:19 So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.
Matthew 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Jeremiah 22:3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.
Proverbs 10:11 The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
Proverbs 10:6 Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
If a Muslim would like to learn of Jesus and the salvation that comes with belief in His name, it would be an honour to discuss Him with you.
God bless all who read the words of theLord.
The Islamic State Muslims of Congo hereby demonstrate that they can be as savage and cruel as their co-religionists in Nigeria. Francis will offer weak condolences and a vague condemnation of generic religious violence and fundamentalism. Noting changes.
The reality of jihad has faded in Western consciousness in the years since 9/11 (and especially since the advent of the woke and covid madness), but the threat has only grown. Africans, Middle Easterners, and others feel the sword daily. Atrocities occur regularly in the West as well, but they are merely treated as unavoidable facts of life that we must learn to live with. If anything, appeasement and surrender policies have only intensified. The open and constant warfare waged on Christians in the Third World will reach the First soon enough. The question is whether our political and religious leaders will even then allow us to fight back.
Question to the editors: Why doesn’t William Kilpatrick write on Islam here any longer? If he has retired, someone else should pick up the baton. The subject needs attention.
“The subject needs attention.” Indeed!
Maybe we ought to dialogue with Isis and accompany them in their sin. At least that’s what Bergoglio would advocate.
Dear Edward:
Let us join our hearts in prayer for Muslims, that they come to know the exceeding joy of following Jesus Christ, the saviour of mankind.
We are being tested and if we proclaim the Gospel to the follower of Islam, through God’s hand, some will find the truth that is in the Bible and put their confidence in Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Acts 4:12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Thank you for your sincerity and desire to strengthen the Church through the excellence that is Jesus Christ.
Yours in Christ,
Brian