A group of 60 youthful people and 24 grown-ups traveled across South Sudan for nine days to see Pope Francis and to plead for peace in their country. The peace passage, an action of the Diocese of Rumbek in central South Sudan, began from Holy Family Cathedral onJan. 25, the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. After nine days and roughly 250 long hauls, the passage arrived in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, on Feb. 2, one day before Pope Francis ’ major visit to the war- torn country.
As they walked for the last many long hauls, dust and joyous songs filled the air as a caravan of people sang and stamped their bases. The spectacle attracted crowds of bystanders. Some joined in as the dancing came more vigorous. Others, doubtful, stood at a safe distance to make way for the group of women dressed in white and wearing headscarves with a print of Pope Francis’s face. Their blemished clothes, blistered bases and cracked lips attested to the fire of the nine- day journey, but they still danced and jumped to celebrate their accomplishment. Refreshments awaited them at Juba’s St Theresa’s Catholic Church, where a drinking party had also started singing and dancing. One pilgrim, who was slipping gashes as she arrived, suggested the trauma the times of fighting have brought to this country. In a major first, he traveled with two other Christian leaders – Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Presbyterian Church of Scotland prolocutor Rev Iain Greenshields.
In 2019, Pope Francis kissed the bases of South Sudan’s bitter political rivals, President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar when they met at the Vatican. This was an act that shocked numerous, indeed if it didn’t incontinently end the fighting. Although this conflict has now subsided, numerous original controversies still routinely end in death – further than 20 people were killed in a cattle raid on the dusk of the Pope’s appearance
