Pope believes HIV crisis in Africa is only a ‘small, partial’ problem

The landlocked Central African Republic descended into bloodshed after longtime Christian leader Francois Bozize was ousted by rebels from the mainly Muslim Seleka force in March 2013.

He is scheduled to visit a mosque in Bangui’s PK5 district, a maze of red dirt roads and flimsy shacks that has been a flashpoint in the sectarian conflict tearing apart the impoverished nation.

After arriving from Uganda on Sunday, he urged people to avoid “the temptation of fear of others” of a different ethnic group or religion, before visiting a camp housing some 3,000 internally displaced people in the heart of the capital.

“My visit to your country is first to commemorate the canonization of Uganda’s martyrs”, he told thousands who joined him at the shrine. Africa has the fastest-growing population of Catholics – and Muslims – in the world, according to Pew Research Center, with both Islam and Christianity expected to have more than twice as many adherents in the region by 2050 as they did in 2010.

In Uganda, the second African country he visited, the pope toured a shrine on Saturday that memorializes the 19th-century Christian martyrs who were burned alive for their faith.

Mobs attacked Muslims in the streets, even decapitating and dismembering them and setting their corpses ablaze.

Christians, and especially those with a vocation to priesthood or religious life, are called to love their enemies, “which protects us from the temptation to seek revenge and from the spiral of endless retaliation”, the pope said in his homily.

He said when those problems are taken care of, questions like condoms and AIDS can be addressed. Tens of thousands of Muslim civilians fled to neighboring Chad and Cameroon.

Mankind is “on the verge of suicide” because of climate change, Pope Francis said in an interview session with reporters aboard the plane as he returned from a 5-day trip to Africa.

Francis urged the worldwide community not to view the country as doomed to a cycle of violence; the current conflict, he said, was “a painful moment, a regrettable moment, but just a moment”.

We can not fail to express hope that the forthcoming national consultations will provide the country with leaders capable of bringing Central Africans together, thus becoming symbols of national unity rather than merely representatives of one or another faction.

A grouping of Christian militias, known as the anti-Balaka, then arose after the Muslim rebels took power and committed atrocities against Christians.

Entering the stadium in a wheelchair decorated with flags from Central African Republic and elsewhere, Redepouzou approached the pope as he was making his way around the track in the popemobile.

He appealed for “an end to every act which, from whatever side, disfigures the face of God and whose ultimate aim is to defend particular interests by any and all means”.

“Those who claim to believe in God must also be men and women of peace”, he said. Regarding the possibility of another visit to African in the future, he said: “I don’t know; I’m old and travel is tiring”. “They looted everything, they burnt my house and I have nothing, but I am ready to forget”.