While news agencies and Catholic social media denizens these days gorge themselves on the Vatican’s mounting “Battle of the Books,” seeing who can craft the most sensational headlines or tweets about several controversial new volumes making the rounds, other outfits are, thankfully, still concerned with things that actually matter.
In a Mass celebrated for the Congolese community in Rome, Pope Francis urged citizens of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to let go of hatred and resentment over current violence and past wrongs, and to choose peace instead.
A leading Catholic aid agency has condemned what it calls “cyclical violence and continuing human rights abuses targeting civilian populations in North Kivu and Ituri Provinces” of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
U.N. radio in Congo reported that Father Etienne Nsengiunva, a priest in Kitchanga, was shot at point-blank range April 8.
Police in Congo are continuing their search for the person who killed a Catholic priest and dumped his body in a river.
The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops encouraged Catholics across the nation to join with Pope Francis Feb. 23 for a special day of prayer and fasting for peace, with special prayers for Congo and South Sudan.
At least six people were killed during demonstrations across the country against delayed elections and Congolese President Joseph Kabila.
Armed men kidnapped two Catholic priests in the troubled North Kivu province. Congo’s bishops have asked security agencies to try to rescue the priests, who were taken by force from the parish they serve on July 16.
