On World Refugee Day, organized every year on June 20 by the United Nations, a senior official of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) urged increased support for migrants, as he warned that Sudan’s massive human movement due to war risked becoming yet another forgotten crisis.
When asked to assess religious freedom worldwide compared to a decade ago, Edward Clancy, the director of outreach for Aid to the Church in Need, doesn’t hesitate with his answer.
Pope Francis has appealed for an end to violence in Sudan and a return to dialogue.
World leaders — including those from the church, humanitarian and diplomatic community — have appealed for a return to dialogue to save Sudan, as fighting triggered fears of a humanitarian catastrophe in the northeastern African country.
Hundreds of people greeted Pope Francis’ envoy to South Sudan’s capital on July 5. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin was received by religious leaders, government officials, and hundreds of guests who sang and danced upon his arrival.
A Lebanese government official said Pope Francis’ visit to the country next month, which had never been formally announced by the Vatican, was being postponed due to the pontiff’s health, casting doubt on Pope Francis’ ambitious summer travel plans.
Forty-year-old Chol Garang and his wife Anok Deng, 33, sit on a woven mat outside their new home in Malakal, South Sudan’s second largest city, waiting for rice donated by the church to cook for their children.
Two Catholic nuns were shot and killed along a highway in South Sudan Aug. 16 as they were returning home to Juba. Seven other sisters survived the attack.
A Jesuit priest from Kenya was reported killed in central South Sudan. Father Victor Luke Odhiambo, 62, who directed a Church-run training center for teachers, died Nov. 14 when armed men stormed a church compound where he lived.
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.
