“I have greatly desired to be here and now at last I have come to bring you the closeness, the affection, and the consolation of the entire Catholic Church.”
Violence in eastern DRC has created a severe humanitarian crisis with more than 5.5 million people displaced from their homes, the third-highest number of internally displaced people in the world.
Pope Francis is scheduled to meet with victims of violence from the eastern part of the country on Feb. 1 in Kinshasa following a Mass that is expected to draw 2 million people. Roughly half of the 90 million people in the DRC are Catholic.
“I am here to embrace you and to remind you that you yourselves are of inestimable worth, that the Church and the pope have confidence in you, and that they believe in your future, the future that is in your hands, your hands,” Francis emphasized, “and for which you deserve to devote all your gifts of intelligence, wisdom, and industry.”
The pope added: “The heavenly Father wants us to accept one another as brothers and sisters of a single family and to work for a future together with others, and not against others.”
God, he said, “is always on the side of those who hunger and thirst for justice. One must never tire of promoting law and equity everywhere, combating impunity and the manipulation of laws and information.”
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