Ten thousand people fleeing the violence of the South Sudanese civil war have taken refuge in and near the nation’s largest church, St Mary’s Cathedral in Wau. “Space is at such a premium that some people even sleep next to the church’s altar,” the IRIN news agency reported. A priest at the cathedral told the agency, which reports on humanitarian crises, that “those who flee believe that even rebels still fear God and would not slaughter civilians in the backyard of a church. Many other churches have also taken in hundreds of people.”

Consistory to reflect on Church’s mission to communicate God’s love
In a letter to the Cardinals ahead of a late-June Consistory, Pope Leo XIV calls for a deeper reflection on the themes of “Evangelii gaudium,”


