Reflecting both the symbolic and the strategic importance of the world’s youngest independent nation, Pope Francis’s top dip-lomat recently urged South Sudan not to succumb to the “plague of vengeance” on his third trip to the African state.
Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin said on August 17 in the largely Christian nation, which has been marred by violence since gaining independence in 2011, that for-giveness is “the key that unlocks the door to peace and justice – the forgiveness that Christ won for us on the cross.”
The Vatican Secretary of State was speaking in the South Suda-nese city of Rumbek.
“Either we disarm our heart and give up violent means of solv-ing our differences, or we destroy ourselves,” Parolin said.
He called on South Sudan to “look beyond all differences” and explore ways of bridging the country’s divides.
After winning its independe-nce from Sudan in 2011, the new nation quickly became mired in seemingly intractable internal conflict.
What started as a political spat between the dominant political elite has degenerated into ethnic violence, pitting President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, against Vice President Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer. Kiir accused Machar of fomenting a coup, prompting Machar to flee the capital city of Juba.
“The return of the country to violence is more evident than the country staying in stability,” he said.
“We know what it means to live in a continual state of inse-curity and fear,” Parolin told con-gregants in Rumbek, but noted that perfect love can drive out fear.

A leading Catholic expert on African affairs has said that competition over mineral wealth as part of what’s often referred to as a “New Colonialism” is at the heart of most of the continent’s conflicts, and that African leaders themselves are often complicit in creating and prolonging the violence.
Referring specifically to a conflict between the government of Mozambique and Islamic militants in the country’s northeastern province of Cabo Delgado, which has claimed an estimated 5,000 lives and displaced some 1 million people since fighting broke out in 2017, Johan Viljoen of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute of South Africa told Crux that “the conflict in Mozambique (and in most other parts of Africa) is about control over mineral wealth.”
Viljoen’s institute is an associate body of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference.
His comments came in the wake of the institute’s recent second International Symposium, which was organized collaboratively with the Technical University of Würzburg-Schweinfurt and other Catholic and civil society organizations.
Bringing together scholars, religious leaders, community members as well as internally displaced persons who fled from the conflict in Cabo Delgado province, the symposium took place in the Diocese of Nicala, Mozambique, under the theme “Working for a just, socially cohesive and conflict-resistant economic trans-formation to build lasting peace processes.”
It focused on decolonization, with Viljoen stating that most African countries rich in natural resources are “subject to economic colonialism coupled with endless wars.”

Reflecting on Christ’s encounter with the Canaanite woman who pleaded for the healing of her daughter (Matthew 15:21-28), Pope Francis said during his August 20 Angelus address that “Jesus changed his attitude. What made him change it was the strength of the woman’s faith.”
Jesus “was directing his preaching to the chosen people,” the Pope told pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “Later the Holy Spirit would push the Church to the ends of the world. But what happens here, we could say, is an anticipation through which the universality of God’s work is already manifested in the episode of the Canaanite woman.”
“Jesus’ openness is interesting,” the Pope continued, as he commented on what he described as the Savior’s change in attitude. “Faced with her concrete case, he becomes even more sympathetic and compassionate. This is what God is like: he is love, and the one who loves does not remain rigid.”
The Pope added: Yes, he or she stands firm, but not rigid, they do not remain rigid in their own positions, but allow themselves to be moved and touched. He or she knows how to change their plans.
Love is creative. And we Christians who want to imitate Christ, we are invited to be open to change. How good it would do our relationships, as well as our lives of faith, if we were to be docile, to truly pay attention, to soften up in the name of compassion and the good of others, like Jesus did with the Canaanite woman. The docility to change. Hearts docile to change.
“We can ask ourselves a few questions, beginning with the change in Jesus,” Pope Francis said at the conclusion of his address. “For example: Am I capable of changing opinion? Do I know how to be understanding and do I know how to be compassionate, or do I remain rigid in my position? Is there some rigidity in my heart? Which is not firmness: rigidity is awful, firmness is good.”
The Pontiff also commented on the Canaanite woman’s faith and prayer, as he had done in his previous Angelus addresses on the Gospel passage (2017, 2020).