However, nowhere is his call for peace and reconciliation more pressing than in Central African Republic, where thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced in clashes that have split the country along religious lines.
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Francis was speaking during a press conference aboard the papal plane on his return from a trip in Africa, where HIV/AIDS is still the number one cause of death. “And he said “if I had not come today, I would have missed out on something”. He said he knew that a small percentage of people – “maybe 17 percent” – of the world’s population controls the vast majority of the world’s wealth – “and I think, ‘How can these people not be aware?’ It’s such suffering”.
Unprecedented security measures have been laid on for the pontiff’s two-day visit to the former French colony, which took place amid a surge in violence.
Peace and interfaith dialogue has been the central themes of the pope’s visit to Africa. The neighborhood and its periphery are frequent sites of clashes.
“I don’t think any other head of state would do what he’s doing”, said Lewis Mudge, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Also, the pope confirmed that next year he planned to visit Mexico and hoped to be able to visit Armenia.
On Sunday, large crowds had lined the road from the airport to welcome the Pope – and people cheered and sang when he arrived at a refugee camp.
“The pope is here!”
Christian militias known as anti-balaka fighters battled back, carrying out revenge attacks against Muslim communities.
The visit was marked by extraordinary scenes prior to a stadium mass attended by tens of thousands of people.
Efforts from the United Nations to broker a peace deal have failed so far.
The visit was a bold move by the pope, who traveled into the most volatile part of Bangui in his open-air vehicle, underscoring the message of his visit here – faith over fear. “Arm yourselves instead with righteousness, with love and mercy, the authentic guarantors of peace”, he said at a mass in the cathedral in Bangui.
Pope Francis tweeted to his more than eight million followers: “Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters, and we must act as such”.
“If a young woman or man has no work, cannot study, what can he or she do?”
To say the world’s economy has put profits and not people at the center and to denounce “the idolatry of the god money”, he said, “is not communism. It can mean having your hands hidden behind your back and having a stone in each hand to throw to others”, he said. When Francis spoke at the mosque, he condemned that sectarian violence.
This comment about contraception was an important moment for Francis, as his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, stirred up significant controversy during a 2009 visit to Africa when he said that condoms could actually worsen the continent’s problem with AIDS. A surveillance balloon flew overhead. According to a recent report by the Infotrak polling organization, more than 75 percent of Kenyans from all religious backgrounds hope to see the pope tackle corruption, accountability and tribal biases among Kenyan leaders. “Before, it was not a religious war, it was a coup, but they’ve tried to make it about religion”.
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“You can not cancel a whole religion because there is a group or many groups of fundamentalists at certain moments of history”.
