Showing posts with label Pope Francis prays for peace in Sudan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pope Francis prays for peace in Sudan. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

Pope Francis prayed for Africans who are victims of violence and conflict especially in Sudan and S. Sudan

Pope Francis born Jorge Mario Bergoglio17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025

"Pope Francis delivered his final Urbi et Orbi message on Easter Sunday 

[20 April 2025], urging world leaders to strive for peace. An aide read the address aloud from the balcony Saint Peter's Square to the crowd of 35,000 faithful as the pontiff sat and watched." Excerpts:


"May the risen Christ, our hope, grant peace and consolation to the African peoples who are victims of violence and conflict, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Sudan and South Sudan. May he sustain those suffering from the tensions in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region, as well as those Christians who in many places are not able freely to profess their faith.

There can be no peace without freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and respect for the views of others.

Nor is peace possible without true disarmament! The requirement that every people provide for its own defence must not turn into a race to rearmament. The light of Easter impels us to break down the barriers that create division and are fraught with grave political and economic consequences. It impels us to care for one another, to increase our mutual solidarity, and to work for the integral development of each human person.


In the face of the cruelty of conflicts that involve defenceless civilians and attack schools, hospitals and humanitarian workers, we cannot allow ourselves to forget that it is not targets that are struck, but persons, each possessed of a soul and human dignity.


Read full copy: 

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/urbi/documents/20250420-urbi-et-orbi-pasqua.html

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Related


Sudan Watch - 26 Feb 2020

South Sudan gets unity govt to end war after 400,000 killed - Pope kissed leaders' feet to encourage peace


Pope kisses feet of South Sudan's leaders to encourage peace


https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2020/02/ssudan-gets-unity-govt-to-end-war-after.html

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Sudan Watch - 27 Apr  2023

Pope Francis appeals for end to violence in Sudan

“I invite everyone to pray for our Sudanese brothers and sisters,” he said after reciting the midday Regina Coeli prayer with people gathered in St Peter’s Square on April 23.

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2023/04/pope-francis-appeals-for-end-to.html

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Sudan Watch - 11 Oct 2023

Pope Francis prayed for Sudan in St. Peter's Square: Love, forgiveness liberate, break cycles of violence

Love, forgiveness liberate, break cycles of violence, pope says

Pope Francis prayed for Sudan in St. Peter's Square: Love, forgiveness liberate, break cycles of violence

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Sudan Watch - 13 Nov 2023

Pope focuses on Darfur-born St. Josephine Bakhita, patron saint of Sudan and human trafficking survivors


Pope Francis highlights St. Josephine Bakhita’s example of forgiveness

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2023/10/pope-focuses-on-darfur-born-st.html

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Sudan Watch - 13 Nov 2023

Pope appeals for humanitarian aid for people in Sudan

“I am close to the sufferings of those dear populations of Sudan, and I address a heartfelt appeal to local leaders to facilitate access to humanitarian aid and, with the contribution of the international community, to work in search of peaceful solutions. Let us not forget these brothers and sisters of ours who are in distress!” -Pope Francis. 

https://sudanwatch.blogspot.com/2023/11/pope-appeals-for-humanitarian-aid-for.html


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Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Pope Francis prayed for Sudan in St. Peter's Square: Love, forgiveness liberate, break cycles of violence

Report from National Catholic Reporter - ncronline.org
Catholic News Service - Vatican City

Dated Wednesday, 11 October 2023 - here is a full copy:


Love, forgiveness liberate, break cycles of violence, pope says

Pope Francis greets a child as he rides in the popemobile around St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican before his weekly general audience Oct. 11. (CNS/Lola Gomez)


The life of St. Josephine Bakhita, a former slave from Sudan who became a nun, demonstrates how love liberates people from oppression and frees them to forgive their oppressors and break cycles of hatred and violence, Pope Francis said.


"Often a wounded person wounds in turn; the oppressed easily becomes an oppressor," the pope said Oct. 11 at his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square.


In contrast, he said, St. Bakhita teaches people that "forgiveness takes away nothing but adds dignity to the person; it makes us lift our gaze from ourselves toward others, to see them as fragile as we are, yet always brothers and sisters in the Lord."


Continuing a series of audience talks highlighting saints who demonstrate zeal or passion for evangelization, Francis said St. Bakhita's life story shows how "forgiveness is the wellspring of a zeal that becomes mercy and calls us to a humble and joyful holiness."


The pope also used the occasion to pray for peace in Sudan, where a power struggle unleashed violence in April and fighting continues although, as he noted, very little is said about it in the news.


St. Bakhita, who lived 1869-1947, was abducted and enslaved at the age of 7. "She suffered cruelty and violence: on her body she bore more than a hundred scars," the pope said.


And yet, she wrote, "I never despaired, because I felt a mysterious force supporting me."


Later she was given a crucifix — the first thing she ever owned — and, the pope said, "looking at it, she experienced a profound inner liberation, because she felt understood and loved and therefore capable of understanding and loving in turn. This is how it begins. One feels understood, loved and is then able to understand and love others."


Having compassion, he said, "means suffering with the victims of the many forms of inhumanity present in the world as well as pitying those who commit errors and injustices -- not justifying them, but humanizing them."


"When we enter into the logic of conflict, division among us, bad feelings, one against another, we lose humanity," the pope said. But St. Bakhita teaches that the solution is "to humanize, humanize ourselves and humanize others," by forgiving them and giving them another chance.


"Forgiveness liberated her," the pope said. "Forgiveness first received through God's merciful love, and then the forgiveness given that made her a free, joyful woman, capable of loving."


View original: https://www.ncronline.org/vatican/vatican-news/love-forgiveness-liberate-break-cycles-violence-pope-says


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