Pope ends Africa tour with visit to auto mosque

Pope Francis made a historic visit to the last remaining Muslim neighborhood in Central African Republic’s capital on Monday, a move that nearly immediately opened up a part of the divided city that had been closed off for months because of retaliatory violence between Muslim and Christian militia fighters.

On Monday, the pope made what was perhaps his most significant visit of the entire trip, to the Grand Mosque of Koudoukou, which has been a symbolic site of the deadly struggles between Christians and Muslims in the region.

“Yes, I confirm, Christians and Muslims of this country are condemned to live together and love one another”, he said.

“Together we must say no to hatred, to revenge and to violence, especially violence perpetrated in the name of a religion or of God himself”, the pope said in Bangui, the capital.

Pope Francis ended his six-day trip to Africa by delivering a poignant speech in which he called for unity among religious groups, arguing that religious conflicts simple spark civil war, terrorism and suffering throughout the continent.

Tidiani Moussa Naibi, the imam of the mosque, assured the pope that Central African Christians and Muslims know that they are brothers and sisters.

Since late 2013 and the massacre of early 2014, CAR Muslims have been facing torture and repression and are being forced to convert to Christianity under pain of death by anti-balaka Christian militias.

Vehicle has been torn apart by violence between Muslim rebels and mainly Christian militias. At the edge of the district, armed Muslim rebels stood alert in front of wooden barricades, watching carefully for any threat from Christian vigilante groups. “Let’s not talk about if one can use this type of patch or that for a small wound, the serious wound is social injustice, environmental injustice”, Pope Francis continued. “God is peace, salam“.

Rebel leader Michel Djotodia resigned the presidency past year to make way for an interim government, headed by interim President Catherine Samba-Panza, but violence continues.

But it sent an inspiring message of hope and peace to Christians and Muslims in a nation that has been locked in a cycle of sectarian violence since December 2012.

Afterward, the pope visited the camp for displaced people that has sprouted around the mosque, just as other camps have mushroomed around the city’s Catholic parishes. He told reporters on a flight back to Rome from his tour of several African nations that there are more important issues, like malnutrition, environmental destruction and lack of clean water, the Associated Press reported.

Dominic also spoke about the Pope’s concern for the environment: “The young people of Africa have taken up the Pope’s call to respect and cherish nature and have been planting trees”, he said.

“Those who have the means to enjoy a decent life, rather than being concerned with privileges”, he said, “must seek to help those poorer than themselves”. “We must therefore consider ourselves and conduct ourselves as such”, Francis said.

Before the fighting drove away many Muslims, Central African Republic was 37 percent Catholic and about 15 percent Muslim, with traditional faiths and Protestants making up the rest, Vatican figures show.

“But they don’t think about developing the countries, about creating jobs”.

The 26-hour visit to Bangui was the first time the pope has visited an active war zone.

Pope Francis arrived at the cathedral after a meeting with representatives of the Central African Republic’s evangelical and Protestant communities.