The Catholic leader will visit two African countries at the end of the month. Before his flying visit, he speaks of great injustice and accuses many world powers of looting.
Before his planned trip to Africa at the end of January, Pope Francis condemned the exploitation of the continent and its inhabitants in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.
“This idea that Africa exists to be exploited is the greatest injustice, but it’s in the collective subconscious of many people and that needs to be changed,” the pontiff said in an interview with Spanish magazine Mundo Negro, published over the weekend has been published. The Catholic leader plans to visit the two African countries from January 31 to February 5.
Francis also warned that Africa is not only rich in natural resources. The “spiritual wealth” of the continent consists of so many people, boys and girls, who are intelligent and educated, said the Pope. Many world powers have focused on looting in Africa, “but they don’t see the intelligence, the size, the art of the people,” he criticized.
Pope also meets victims of violence
The trip was already planned last July, but was then postponed because of Francis’ knee problems. Contrary to what was originally planned, this time there will be no short visit to Goma in the east of the Congo. “I can’t go there because guerrillas have penetrated a lot there,” he said. He himself is not afraid, but believes that his presence and possible larger gatherings of people could pose a risk. “Then they throw a bomb in the stadium and kill a lot of people,” Francis feared in an interview with the magazine published by the Comboni Missionaries in Madrid.
From January 31 to February 3, the Pope will be in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, where he will meet, among other things, victims of violence from the east of the country. Afterwards, continue to Juba, the capital of South Sudan. During his visit there he will be accompanied by the Primate of the Anglican Church and the moderator of the Church of Scotland. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan suffer greatly from armed conflicts, natural disasters and humanitarian crises.
Source: Stern
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