South Sudan : Pope Francis Calls For Peace, Justice

Vatican’s Pope Francis has called for peace and justice in South Sudan. The Pope made the call on Saturday while meeting a group of several hundred South Sudanese people internally displaced by war. “I am with you here, and I suffer for you and with you,” Pope Francis said at Freedom Hall in Juba, the capital, to hundreds of people who, like millions of South Sudanese, lived what he called the “common and collective experience” of living in sprawling camps for displaced people. He described South Sudan as the “greatest enduring refugee crisis on the continent,” afflicted with widespread hunger, especially for women and children. He lamented the war, ethnic strife, violence against women and floods aggravated by climate change that had put them in danger and uprooted them from their traditions and cultures for years. 
Prior to the reception of the displaced people on Saturday, the Pope flanked by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland who are on an “ecumenical pilgrimage” to South Sudan, addressed a special message to President Kiir and his first deputy Riek Machar calling on them not to resume the war. “No more bloodshed, no more conflicts, no more violence and mutual recriminations about who is responsible for it, no more leaving your people yearning for peace. No more destruction: it is time to build! Leave the time of war behind and let a time of peace dawn,” he said.
Meanwhile, during a separate meeting with bishops, priests and deacons at St Theresa's Cathedral in Juba on Saturday, Pope Francis asked people to challenge injustice amid an ethni...