“God is peace. Salaam”, he added, using the Arabic word for peace. The trip is expected in late February. “It seems to me also like a partial question”. I hope this will be the case and I pray it will. “The moral of the Church on this point is found here faced with a perplexity: the Fifth or Sixth Commandment?” The church opposes condoms along with all other forms of contraception, and it opposes sexual relations between members of the same sex.
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‘But they don’t think about developing the countries, about creating jobs. “These are the problems”.
Mirroring the opening verse of House of Pain’s song Jump around, one person wrote: ‘Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin, I came to win souls, that’s not a sin.
“Religious fundamentalism isn’t religion, it’s idolatry”, he told the press.
“Fundamentalism is a sickness that is in all religions”, said the pontiff.
“We Catholics, we have a few, even many fundamentalists”. In the meantime he said he is working to remind parishioners they must learn to live alongside their adversaries.
“I am not sure, but I can say to you “now or never”, he said.
“We are on the verge of suicide, to put it strongly”, he said. “We can speak. His values are mine”.
He later celebrated Mass in Bangui, and urged people to arm themselves “with justice, love, mercy and authentic peace”…”Together, we must say no to hatred, to revenge and to violence, particularly that violence which is perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God himself”. What religious leaders need to do is convince people who have these tendencies. “The Christian community in Uganda grew strong through the martyrs”. It wasn’t the Muslims who were responsible for the Sack of Rome.
Pope Francis told reporters he is well aware that God is a god of surprises, but he had not been prepared for what a surprise his first visit to Africa would be.
But he has also emphasized the kind and joyous welcome he felt in each of the three nations he visited. Peace and interfaith dialogue has been the central themes of the pope’s visit to Africa.
“They have refused to listen”, he said of the fighters in an interview Saturday.
The topic of AIDS and HIV has taken a back seat during the pope’s visit to the three African countries.
All this is reminiscent of President Obama’s remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast last February, when he reflected on religious violence around the world, including in the Central African Republic.
“There are many malnourished children, many”, Francis said.
He then spoke again about his frequent exhortation against the “idolatry of money”.
“This is not communism”, he said. And seeing the truth is not easy. “Slaves were sold to America, and there are countries that only want to exploit the great wealth Africa has”. “Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history”, he said.
Kenya’s main problem, even if one asks Kenyans, is considered to be widespread corruption, starting within government. He said the media maintains professional integrity, so long as it avoids misinformation, calumny, and defamation.
Pope Francis said that at various moments of his trip, he visited the very poor, people who lack everything and have suffered tremendously. Francis apparently thinks the debate is “casuistic” when Africa is suffering from the plagues of warfare, starvation and slavery in addition to HIV.
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“I don’t know”, he said. On a trip to Cameroon and Angola in 2009, Francis’s predecessor Benedict XVI was heavily criticised for refusing to budge on condom use.
