Pope Francis brings message of reconciliation to Central African Republic



"Work, pray, do everything for peace"

BANGUI: -- Pope Francis received a rapturous reception in the Central African Republic on Sunday on a visit welcomed by both the majority Christian community and the Muslim minority.

On his first trip to a war zone, he brought a message of reconciliation, telling those he met at a refugee camp in Bangui: “We are all brothers”.

“Work, pray, do everything for peace,” he said at the camp.

“But remember, peace without love, friendship and tolerance is nothing. I hope that all Central Africans can see peace.”

Bangui, the capital of the former French colony, is the final leg of a first African trip for the Catholic leader that has already taken him to Kenya and Uganda.

The warm welcome comes amid a backdrop of deadly violence between Muslim rebels and Christian militia.

Tens of thousands of cheering people lined the route of his motorcade into the city and the presidential palace for a meeting with interim head of state Catherine Samba-Panza.

Greeting the pontiff, she asked for forgiveness, saying that “hearts had been hardened by the forces of evil”.

Speaking slowly in French, he appealed for a “unity in diversity” that shuns divisions along political or religious lines.


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-11-30

The Vatican is mass murders state.

Against condoms spreading HIV in Africa

Shame on religions of lies.

There are no gods

Pope Francis brings message of reconciliation to Central African Republic

When will the Pope get the message that by condemning the use condoms, he and his church are accessories to the destruction of millions of lives around the world, including numerous members of his flock in the Central African Republic.

How can he preach reconciliation as a means to end war when the stubborn refusal of successive Pontiffs to reconcile Catholic dogma with scientific evidence on HIV-AIDS prevention is a - if not the - major cause of the continued spread of this deadly disease?

The late Christopher Hitchens got it right when he said, in his book God Isn't Great, that religion poisons everything.