Pope Francis has urged the leaders of South Sudan to overcome their divisions and to find consensus for the good of the country.
Speaking at his weekly blessing in the Vatican, the Pope said he hoped to visit South Sudan next year.
South Sudan declared independence from Sudan in 2011 but has been crippled by conflict ever since.
President Salva Kiir and former rebel leader Riek Machar signed a peace deal in September 2018.
Pope Francis appealed for peace after kissing the rival leaders’ feet
However, on Thursday the two leaders agreed to delay forming a unity government until February next year.
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Although the cease-fire has largely held, the peace deal is still on shaky ground, according to the BBC’s Africa editor Will Ross.
There are fears the breakdown of the deal could lead to the return of large-scale violence in the predominantly Christian country, our correspondent adds.
Pope Francis, who didn’t detail his travel plans to South Sudan, hosted the two rivals in the Vatican in April.
He knelt to kiss their feet as he urged them not to return to civil war.
An estimated 382,000 people are believed to have died in the years of fighting following South Sudan’s 2013 descent into civil war.
Inside South Sudan’s civil war
Pope announces visit to South Sudan in 2020
By VaticansNews
Pope Francis, following the recitation of the Angelus announces a visit to the African nation of South Sudan. He also offers prayers for Bolivia and recalls a new Saint and Blessed for the Church.
Pope Francis during his Angelus on Sunday, November 10, invited the faithful to pray for the African nation of South Sudan which he said, he wished to visit next year. The Pope had already expressed this wish during an audience with the President of the Republic of South Sudan, Salva Kiir.
SOUTH SUDAN
Speaking to the faithful in St Peter’s Square, the Pope said he wished to renew his invitation “to all those involved in the national political process to seek what unites and to overcome what divides, in a spirit of true brotherhood.” He also recalled the spiritual retreat for the Authorities of the country, which took place in the Vatican last April.
The Pontiff said “the South Sudanese people have suffered too much in recent years and look forward with great hope to a better future, especially the definitive end of conflicts and lasting peace. I therefore urge those responsible to continue, tirelessly, with their commitment to an inclusive dialogue in the search for consensus for the good of the nation.” The Pope expressed the hope that the international community would not neglect to accompany South Sudan on the path to national reconciliation.
Following its independence in 2011, South Sudan erupted into civil war in 2013. The President Salva Kiir accused his Vice-President Rieck Machar of orchestrating a coup against him. Up to 400,000 people have been killed and more than 4 million displaced in the conflict.
PRAYERS FOR BOLIVIA
After the recitation of the Hail Mary, Pope Francis also invited people to pray for Bolivia, near he said, to his homeland.
The South American country has been engulfed in political unrest following disputed results of an October 20 election.
A number of people have died as a result of the violence and more than 300 have been injured.
The Pope called on all Bolivians, particularly political and social actors, “to wait constructively and unconditionally, in a climate of peace and serenity, for the results of the process of revising the elections, which is currently under way. In peace.”
A NEW SAINT AND BLESSED
Turning his attention to Granada in Spain, Pope Francis invited the faithful to applaud Blessed Maria Emilia Riquelme y Zayas, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and of Mary Immaculate, who was proclaimed Blessed on Saturday. He also recalled a Mass of thanksgiving being celebrated on Sunday for the equipollent canonization of St. Bartholomew Fernandes of the Martyrs. The new Blessed, he said was exemplary in the fervor of Eucharistic adoration and generous in the service of the neediest, while the new Saint was a great evangelizer and pastor of his people.
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Sources: BBC News Vatican News
