There’s one he hasn’t met yet: the Pope.
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He called fundamentalism “a disease of all religions”, including the Roman Catholic Church.
The Vatican leader shared that he is very pleased with his trip to Africa, and revealed that he prayed at a mosque in in Bangui, Central African Republic, riding around a Muslim neighborhood with the imam with him in the popemobile.
Reports of gunfire and fighting have diminished around the pope’s visit though it remains to be seen whether those gains will last.
“We are well aware that the recent events and acts of violence which have shaken your country were not grounded in properly religious motives”, said the Argentine pontiff.
African gays are sometimes persecuted in the streets and in courts.
Marking the first Sunday of Advent at the Mass with priests, religious, catechists and youths, Pope Francis urged the Catholic community to be committed to helping the country make a new start.
His visit to the country came seven years after the cleric angered the apartheid government when he refused to kiss the ground in 1988 when the papal plane he was travelling in was forced to land in the country because of bad weather conditions.
Throughout the early months of 2014, mobs attacked Muslims in the streets, even decapitating and dismembering them and setting their corpses ablaze.
His next trip to Uganda took him to the Namugongo shrines, dedicated to the Anglican and Catholic converts in Uganda who were burned, speared and tortured by a local king after they refused to renounce their Christian beliefs.
“If he provokes the haters we’re going to be treated badly by society”, said Sandra Ntebi, 33, a human rights activist in Uganda.
Some people are asking about whether the Paris Climate Change Summit is worthy of our time and consideration.
An inquiry must be opened to establish who was behind the killing and punish those responsible, the archbishop added.
“It’s not like that-call them to practice abstinence”.
Clerics in Kenya also said the Pope will be coming with a message of reconciliation and peace when he tours the east African nation next week.
Former SA President Nelson Mandela said: “To say this visit is long overdue is to pay tribute to your own abhorrence of the system of apartheid”. The not-for-profit group describes itself as a secular organization.
However, he said, he had hoped the trial would be over before the opening December 8 of the Year of Mercy, but he does not think that will be possible because the defendants’ lawyers need adequate time to defend their clients properly.
“But I am old and these trips are heavy”, he said.
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Elsewhere, the pope visited with HIV-infected children at a Uganda hospital and kissed each one, listened to moving testimony from a girl born with the virus and thanked the church’s health care workers for caring for those infected.
