Francis eschews his own safety

Francis eschews his own safety to back ‘three saints of Bangui’

A Christian man chased a suspected Seleka officer in civilian clothes with a knife near the airport in Bangui, Central African Republic. (Jerome Delay/AP)
Image result for John L. Allen JrBy John L. Allen Jr in CRUS, covering all things Catholic

(Note: After Kenya and Uganda, Francis will literally go into a war zone, Central African Republic (CAR). It is also here that Evangelicals, Muslims and Catholics collaborate and where the “three saints of Bangui” are found, a good example of wheat and weed thrive side by side. james kottoor, editor)

It almost sounds like the start of a bad joke: “A pastor, an imam, and an archbishop walk into a war ….” This week, however, it isn’t the set-up to a punchline, but rather a primary explanation for why Pope Francis is determined to set foot in one of the world’s most dangerous hotspots.Francis departs Wednesday for a five-day trip to Africa, one that’s supposed to take him to Kenya and Uganda before ending with a Nov. 29-30 stop in the Central African Republic.

One has to say “supposed to” because it’s still not certain that Francis will actually make it to the war-torn CAR. The Vatican on Thursday insisted the pope fully intends to go, but also acknowledged that it is monitoring the security situation.
Assuming Francis proceeds, the trip will mark the first time a pope has visited an active war zone. The CAR descended into violence two and a half years ago when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power, backed by forces from Chad and Sudan, sparking reprisal killings by largely Christian militias.Some 5,000 civilians have died in the conflict, and one-quarter of the population of 4.6 million has been displaced. Just last week, 22 more people were killed in gunfights in rural villages.

Against that backdrop, Francis’s visit represents one of the bolder things a pope has done in recent memory. His roll of the dice is even more dramatic given his current plan to visit a mosque in a Muslim neighborhood considered a no-go zone because it is dominated by jihadist forces.Part of the reason for the pontiff’s resolve lies with his hosts, especially the “three saints of Bangui,” referring to the capital city.

The three are the Rev. Nicolas Guerekoyame-Gbangou, president of the Evangelical Alliance; Imam Oumar Kobine Layama, president of the Islamic Council; and Archbishop Diedonné Nzapalainga of Bangui, president of the Catholic bishops’ conference.
They represent the main religious options in a country where 50 percent of the population is Protestant, 30 percent Catholic, and 15 percent Muslim. Remarkably, they were fast friends even before the conflict broke out, and they’ve only deepened those bonds since.
Together, they’ve traveled the country visiting areas plagued by violence, holding community meetings to rebuild trust. They promote a string of “peace schools” where children of all religions can study, as well as health care centers open to all faiths.
Last year, they toured Western capitals to plead for intervention to stop the bloodshed, meeting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York and Pope Francis in Rome. Their groundwork led to the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in September 2014.
It was the French daily Le Monde that dubbed the clerics the “three saints of Bangui.” Time magazine named them among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014, and the United Nations awarded them the 2015 Sergio Vieira de Mello Prize for peace.

In December 2013, when Christian militias attacked the Muslim neighborhood where Layama lived, Nzapalainga invited the imam and his family to move into his personal residence at St. Paul’s Parish. They remained there for five months.“When the life of a brother is threatened, we must provide assistance,” Nzapalainga said, adding that the experience “brought us a lot closer.”When the life of a brother is threatened, we must provide assistance.

– Archbishop Diedonné Nzapalainga of Bangui on sheltering an imam threatened by Christian militias. To take another example, in August 2013 Guerekoyame-Gbangou was thrown into prison after criticizing then President François Bozizé. In response, Nzapalainga demanded to be incarcerated along with his friend.“I asked for a sleeping mat so I can stay with Rev. Nicolas. Whatever time it will last, three days or [several] months, I was determined to remain in prison with him,” he told World Watch Monitor.Suitably shamed, the interior minister had Guerekoyame-Gbangou released.

The three men repeatedly have put their lives on the line. Last February, for example, they visited a Bangui church for a dialogue session. When they arrived, an outraged crowd was instead planning a lynching, after learning that an imam had been driven to the site by a former member of the Seleka.The clerics escorted the man into the church and refused to surrender him. They were surrounded by an angry mob from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., without food or water, until peacekeepers came to their rescue.The risks aren’t occasional, but constant.

Last month, Guerekoyame-Gbangou narrowly missed being killed when Muslim gunmen assaulted his house on the grounds of Bangui’s Elim Church. He had departed a half-hour before, but two other people had their throats slit — tragically, they were displaced residents who had been given refuge by the pastor.

Their core message is that the conflict is not religious or sectarian, but rather driven by economic and political self-interest. (Among other things, the CAR is the world’s 12th largest diamond exporter, and its open-pit mines are renowned for the quality of their gems. Control of the mines is a major objective of all sides.)

If peace comes to the Central African Republic, most observers believe the three saints of Bangui will deserve a strong share of the credit. In an era in which religion is often seen as a source of conflict, they offer a powerful counter-example that it can be every bit as much a part of the solution.It would seem that for Pope Francis, shining a spotlight on this remarkable inter-faith friendship is worth running a few risks himself.
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