Vatican City, Jun 21, 2017 / 11:34 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After the Vatican stated last month the postponement of Pope Francis’ proposed trip to South Sudan, they announced Wednesday that the Pope will instead send aid to the people suffering from worsening conditions.
The Vatican announced June 21 that Pope Francis will be aiding projects in the areas of education, healthcare, and agriculture, called the “Pope for South Sudan” Initiative.
The program will be coordinated through the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, headed by Cardinal Peter Turkson, and by Caritas International.
Because he is unable to travel to South Sudan in person, Pope Francis “wanted to express the tangible presence and closeness of the Church with the afflicted people,” Cardinal Turkson told journalists.
“It is an initiative that is to foster, support and encourage the work of the various religious congregations and international aid organizations that are present on the territory and tirelessly work to help the population and to promote the process of development and peace,” he said.
The projects of the Pope’s aid includes support for two hospitals: Wau Hospital in the Western Bahr el-Ghazal state, and Nzara Hospital in the Diocese of Tombura-Yambio.
Both hospitals have fewer than 130 beds between all of the departments, though the Wau Hospital treats around 300 patients a day on average, hospitalizing around 40,000 per year.
The aid will go toward support for medical and nursing staff, medicine and its transportation from Uganda to the hospital and management costs of the facilities.
Among the priorities of the Nzara hospital are the prevention and treatment of diseases such as tuberculosis, leprosy, and AIDS, as well as healthcare for children under the age of five.
Under education, the Pope’s initiative will help support an association of religious congregations called “Solidarity with South Sudan” which is working to train teachers, nurses, midwives, local farmers, and community leaders.
Since 2010 they have offered a two-year full-time program for obtaining a primary school teacher diploma at their center in Yambio, recognized by the Ministry of Education of South Sudan. Since opening, they have welcomed 3,500 students.
Francis also sends 200,000 euros ($223,000) to support agriculture in the country. The aid will be directed toward giving families the tools and seeds to grow their own crops where it is possible, thus feeding themselves and their families and providing a sustainable source of food.
In comments to CNA, Cardinal Turkson emphasized that this initiative should not be presented in any way as the only and first time the Holy Father is showing interest in the situation in South Sudan.
Cardinal Turkson himself has already made two visits there on behalf of the Pope, and this is just “the latest gesture,” he said.
“The Holy Father stays very close to the situation in South Sudan to try to a help, to be paternal to the situation over there and to try to afford the help that he can.”
Since December 2013 there has been ongoing civil war in South Sudan, interrupted by tenuous peace.
Parts of South Sudan were declared to be under conditions of famine in February. The classification was lifted Wednesday following an increase in aid, according to a UN-backed report. It warns, however, that the situation remains desperate as the number of people at risk for starvation continues to increase.
Michel Roy, Secretary General of Caritas International, told CNA that in February they said 100,000 people were going to die of hunger, but now they think that number might be 1 million.
“The situation is worsening day-by-day and we tend to forget what the situation is because it’s not new,” he said. “Now, the people of South Sudan are dying of hunger, of famine. Because there is no food and we cannot bring food to them because of security. So it’s the worst thing that can happen.”
The Pope’s aid is not just important for the concrete help it gives, he said, but because it also again raises the attention of the international community to the plight in South Sudan.
“To save lives needs money,” he continued. “The UN have launched an appeal which is only half funded, so the other half has to be found. It’s a lot of money, but we cannot just sit and look at people dying, so there’s a real need for increasing humanitarian aid.”
The Vatican’s aid to South Sudan was also welcomed by Catholic Relief Services, the US bishops’ international charity agency.
Sean Callahan, the president of CRS, stated that “what is most important, is Pope Francis telling world not to give up on South Sudan, that we all must step up our commitment to help.”
Callahan recently visited South Sudan, and said, “I can tell you from my visit that there is hope. I saw that when people had peace, they got to work, planting their crops, building homes and roads, building the new nation.”
CRS has led a US government-funded program in the country which focuses on supporting infrastructure development by providing food rations to villagers building roads, schools, dykes, and waterways. The aid agency is urging Congress to continue funding such aid programs, as the Trump administration has proposed cutting or eliminating such programs.
“We’ve seen those programs work and make a huge difference in the lives of people in South Sudan,” Callahan stated. “Now is not the time to turn our backs. There’s still hope and we can still get things done.”
Cardinal Turkson added that South Sudan needs the intervention of the international community to help end the conflict and bring about peace, the only thing which will truly end the humanitarian crisis.
“Pope Francis is a universal shepherd who crosses borders,” Cardinal Turkson said in the press conference. “He feels the pressing need to raise awareness of the international community about this silent drama, calling for greater and renewed efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict.”
“The Holy Father does not forget the unheard and silent victims of this bloody and inhuman conflict, he does not forget all those people who are forced to flee their native country because of the abuse of power, injustice and war – he brings them all in his prayers and in his heart,” he said.
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Hey, Holy Father, it’s not possible to worship God while making the liturgy devoid of all its symbolism and beauty either. Where are these council deniers, anyhow? Probably hanging out with all the other straw men you’ve created.
The Pontiff is simply an arsonist who likes to stick around and watch what he’s firebombed burn to the ground.
He’s gonna’ have to live a long time if he hopes to see the TLM gone. Just like the papal oath against modernism; practitioners simply took it underground.
Well Gary, if that is what the fire in him (the Holy Spirit) does, then why should we grumble.
This reader doesn’t have a dog in this fight, and I don’t reject Traditionis custodes, but how are we to interpret this dismissal of “those movements that try to go back a little and deny the Second Vatican Council itself.”
In the interests of dialogue, reconciliation, factual accuracy and Church unity, what is really called for is not monologue but a coming together of today’s liturgy with what the Council actually adopted in Sacrosanctum Concilium–as a unified development of Tradition with what was explicitly intended for the Novus Ordo. Not either/or. Not setting the clock “back a little,” but setting in right.
Now that at least 70 percent of Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence, or even attend Mass, what is to be done, really? Invest in doughnuts rather than candles?
Righteous, Jeff T. As for smelling Satan?, I’ve not got the nose for that. I have heard it said that Satan hates Latin, so he and Francis may have that in common.
I pray that Almighty God soon take this poor, confused soul into that big synodally synodal synod in the sky, and grant him the fullness of peace, mercy and salvation, regardless of his many human mistakes.
“When the liturgical life is a bit like a banner of division, there is the stench of the devil in there, the deceiver,”
It does seem that way. For the first three decades of worship in the old form, the change introduced by Vatican 2 came like a breath of fresh air. The liturgy of the Word was richer and more meaningful since it was done in a language I understood. I accepted the change because I went along with the decision of the Church. After all, I belonged to the Church having been baptized into it. I believe this the way our Lord wants it to be.
Malware Alert!
Regarding the liturgy, you refer to the “decision of the Church.” Notwithstanding that much cleaning-up has been done in recent decades, the earlier experimental masses (in both senses of the term) still linger as a bad taste associated with the Novus Ordo.
You, who in a recent post proudly imply that others fall short of your lofty personal standard of actually reading the works of Pope Francis, are invited to take a another or new look at what Vatican II actually decided and authorized in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy:https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html
And as for your reported “millions”—certainly true–who admire the subtleties of Pope Francis’ writings (and his contrary signaling?), what are these compared to the 1,300 millions of Catholics in the world today and all those who have come before, the real Tradition-—what G.K. Chesterton calls the more inclusive (!) “democracy of the dead”?
Make no self-referential mistake, Pope Francis is the pope of all of us, but we also agree with him that his actions are far from perfect. These would be tough times for any pope, but unfortunately his successes include progress on his goal of “making a mess of things.”
Your own headcount of sympathetic followers on these pages could improve if you refrained from branding others—surely less pristine than yourself—as “trads and protestants.” Show some self respect.
I say “trads and Protestants” because they form the bulk of the people that oppose Pope Francis. Of course, there are others who think like them but who do not associate with them. I suppose I could add “and a few others”. But I will not change my ways because those groups are harming the Church and, sadly, quite a few souls.
“…others who think like them [only]? “I will not change my ways.” How “bigoted” and how very “rigid” can one be? How very “traditional”!
Brother Mal,
My less sarcastic remark is to recommend the 19th century St. John Henry Cardinal Newman (regarded as the “grandfather of the Second Vatican Council”) who, in his “Development of Christian Doctrine,” explains that in moving “forward” it is necessary to NOT burn our bridges (the real Tradition). The “others” whom you now recognize simply notice some fires and that’s where the one-sided (!) dialogue is focused.
Newman offers seven criteria:
(1) One and the same TYPE [doctrine/ natural law v. a disconnected degree of pastoral “accompaniment”?],
(2) The same PRINCIPLES [sound philosophy v. neo-Hegelianism?],
(3) The same ORGANIZATION [the Barque of Peter v. Fratellli tuti’s all religions equivalently (?) “the will of God”?];
(4) If its beginnings ANTICIPATE its subsequent phases [Catechism/Veritatis Splendor v. signaling the normalization of homosexual activity, etc.?], and
(5) Its later phenomena PROTECT and subserve its earlier [VS/Familiarus Consortio v. the fanciful social-science of Marx, and Batzing and Hollerich?];
(6) If it has a power of assimilation and REVIVAL [Evangelization v. Amazonia/Germania?], and
(7) A vigorous ACTION from first to last…” [energized witnessing while/because also fully and steadfastly engaging new challenges v. double-speak?].
That’s great, as long as you never travel and have to listen to Mass in another language. Then it is no different than the Latin Mass. I have traveled to several countries, and any Mass in other than English or French is just as “non-understandable” as Latin. At least in my youth, most people had a missal with English translations so one could follow along, even without understanding the priest.
This is too much even from this Pope.
What do they call those who attribute actions to others that they themselves are doing???
The word you are looking for is projection
Pot and kettle maybe?
“Indeed, such closed-minded people use liturgical frameworks to defend their views.”
Were more true words ever spoken by the man?
Problems with worship go all the way back to the Church at Corinth. St. Paul had to give them correction to keep the faith pure in the face of pagan idol worship. St. Paul’s comments about women covering their heads and the eating of meat offered to idols was in response to the pagan worship practices of the time. The general sequence for pagan worship was for there to be a sacrifice to a pagan god. The meat from the pagan sacrifice was served in attached dining halls or sold in meat markets. The people in the dining halls got drunk and engaged in sexual orgies. In the pagan temples women who wore their hair down meant that they were sexually available. Proper women wore their hair up.
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St. Paul wrote:
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Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If any one imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But if one loves God, one is known by him.
4 Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
7 However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through being hitherto accustomed to idols, eat food as really offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 Only take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge, at table in an idol’s temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? 11 And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. 12 Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food is a cause of my brother’s falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.
(1 Corinthians 8:1-13 RSVCE)
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CWR has had articles about open, uncorrected liturgical abuses. Many modernist Catholics are all too puffed up with worldly knowledge, very much like the Church at Corinth.
Pope Francis neglected to add that he is the one who made the liturgy a battleground, not those who love the Mass of Ages. Popes John Paul and Benedict pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence and mutual enrichment, which he disregarded out of irrational hatred and a will to flex his power.
I agree completely. His Holiness absolutely should stop gratuitously making the Liturgy a battleground and deliberately being divisive. It is tragic.
For Mahatma Gandhi, following Christ was much more than liturgy. He would often say, “Oh, I don’t reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It is just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ”