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President of the Central African Republic [CAR], Professor Faustin-Archange Touadéra has said that the greatest priority of his administration is to work for the peace and reconciliation of the whole country. 

President Touadéra made the remarks in an interview Monday with Radio Vatican’s French Africa Service.

CAR’s President also said peace and reconciliation, in his country, needed to go hand in hand with “Disarming, Demobilisation and the Reintegration of some of the armed groups into one national and neutral defence force,” President Touadéra said.

Earlier President Touadéra visited Pope Francis in the Vatican. A statement issued by the Holy See after the meeting stated that the discussions between President Touadéra and Pope Francis were both cordial and warm. The communique said it was clear that the recent electoral process and the renovation of the country’s institutions [in CAR] were taking place in a constructive climate.

“At the same time, it emerged that the consequences of the conflicts of recent years continue to weigh upon the population, and the important role of the international community in supporting the development of the country was emphasised,” read the Holy See communique, in part.

During the Radio Vatican interview, President Touadéra said that his visit to Pope Francis was to thank him personally on behalf of all the people of Central African Republic.

“I came to say thank you to Pope Francis for the great and courageous honour he accorded us by visiting CAR. He visited us during a tough period. The Pope gave us hope for peace. The significant and historical gesture of opening the Holy Door of Mercy in Bangui is something that we will never forget. He not only officially opened the Holy Door of Mercy; he also opened, as it were, the door to a new era in our country,” President Touadéra told the Africa Service of Radio Vatican, in French. 

President Touadéra appealed to the international community to help his country move towards peace and reconciliation.

“It is essential that we reorganise our national defence force into a national and neutral army with the support of the international community, particularly the United Nations’ troops and also with the help of France. We need to begin systematically the disarmament of unconventional armed groups and any individuals carrying illegal weapons of war. Similarly, we have to strengthen the rule of law in our country; the legal system must be fully operational in all prefectures of the country to track down, prosecute offenders and guarantee human rights, the fight against impunity and corruption,” President  Touadéra said.

The President conceded that his government faces the daunting task of reconstructing almost everything. He said in spite of all this; he is determined to succeed. He spoke of the need for the efficient redeployment of state administration throughout the country. 

“We need to restore the authority of the state by the visible and actual presence of administrative and local authorities, that is, prefects, mayors, national defence forces, justice, administrative representatives to reassure, protect people and encourage them to resume their activities in peace.” President  Touadéra added.

On education, he said revamping the education sector was also one of his priorities. 
“The country is in dire need of more teachers, training, formation and capacity building. We need to rebuild the infrastructure that has been destroyed,” he emphasised.

President  Touadéra further spoke about the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) -a terrorist militia group of Ugandan origin; good governance in the country and the importance of improving relations between Christians and Muslims in CAR. 

Towards the end of the radio interview and speaking in Sango, the de facto lingua franca of CAR, President  Touadéra challenged his compatriots to seize the historic opportunity at hand and solemnly pledge to change the course of their country away from recurring conflicts that disrupt the lives of peaceful citizens.

While in Rome, President Touadéra held talks with Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva. The talks focused on rebuilding the country's agriculture sector and making it an engine for peace and sustainable development.

FAO says years of conflict and political instability have hampered agricultural activities on which nearly 75 percent of the country's population rely for food and income. Some 1.3 million people in the Central African Republic are severely food insecure.

(Fr. Paul Samasumo, Vatican Radio)
Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va

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Vatican City, Apr 18, 2016 / 10:57 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Speaking at morning Mass at the Santa Marta residence, Pope Francis on Monday urged the faithful to seek salvation through anyone but Jesus alone, because he is the only way into heaven.  

“The Lord thus clearly says: you cannot enter eternal life by any entryway that is not the door – that is not Jesus,” the Pope said during his April 18 homily, according to Vatican Radio's translation. “He is the door of our life – and not only of eternal life, but also of our daily lives.”

If we do not make decisions “in the name of Jesus” – who is the door – we attempt to do so through a “smuggler's hatch,” he said.

Pope Francis drew his reflection from the day's readings, and referenced Sunday's Gospel on the good shepherd. “He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door,” but who tries to enter another way, “is a thief and a robber,” he said. “There is no other” door than Christ.

Jesus used “simple images” that people at the time could relate to, such as the shepherd, he said. They therefore understood when Jesus said the only entrance was through the “gate of the sheep pen.”

On the “path of life, the life of every day,” we need only follow Jesus, the shepherd, and we will never be misled, the Pope said. “Those who follow Jesus do nor err!”

Pope Francis said those who seek guidance from the likes of fortune tellers, for instance, are not following Jesus. In such an instance, “you follow another, who shows you another way, a different way.”

Rather: “Jesus shows the way forward: there is no other who can show the way.”

The Pope cited Jesus' warnings against following those who claim to have the way of the Messiah. “Do not listen. Do not hear them. I am the way.”

“Jesus is the door and also the path: if we follow Him we shall not go astray.”

The sheep “follow Him because they know his voice,” Pope Francis said. Moreover, the way to distinguish the voice of Jesus from “bandits, who [seek to] destroy and deceive you,” is to find look to the Beatitudes.

“Should someone make to teach you a way contrary to the Beatitudes, [know] that such a one is one who has entered through the window: it is not Jesus!”

Another clue as to whether the voice is from Jesus is whether it “speaks of the works of mercy,” he said.

The third indication that the voice is Jesus is that it “teaches you to pray the Our Father.”

Pope Francis concluded: “May the Lord make us understand that this is Jesus, this is the icon of Him: the pastor who leads, who shows the way, and teaches us to listen to His voice.”

 

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Cindy Wooden

ROME (CNS) -- After less than 48 hours in Rome, "dream" is the word used most often by the six Syrian adults Pope Francis brought back to Italy with him from a refugee camp in Greece.

By April 18, the couples -- who asked to be identified by only their first names, Hasan and Nour, Ramy and Suhila, Osama and Wafa -- and their six children had spent more than three hours doing paperwork with Italian immigration officials and had enrolled in Italian language classes.

Other than that, most of their first two days in Rome had been spent giving interviews and answering phone calls from friends and relatives who saw them on television boarding the pope's plane April 16. All three families saw their homes bombarded in Syria and all three arrived in Greece from Turkey on overloaded rubber boats months ago.

Being chosen from among thousands of refugees to come to Italy felt like "a dream," said Wafa. Being in Rome and not a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos "is a big dream," said Hasan.

Osama is dreaming of peace in his homeland. "We want peace in Syria so we can go home," he told reporters outside the language and culture school run by the Catholic Sant'Egidio Community.

In agreement with the Italian government, the Rome-based lay community, along with the Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy, has been operating a "humanitarian corridor" for vulnerable Syrian refugees -- the elderly, families with sick children, women traveling alone with their children. The Vatican asked Sant'Egidio to help it screen refugees in Greece and choose families that both the Greek and Italian governments would provide with the necessary travel papers in time for the papal flight.

Daniela Pompei, coordinator of Sant'Egidio programs for migrants and refugees, said the Greek government insisted that they choose only refugees who arrived in Greece before March 20, when an agreement between the European Union and Turkey went into effect. Under the terms of the agreement, new arrivals must apply for asylum and will be taken back to Turkey if their requests are denied.

The two Christian families originally on the list for inclusion in the papal flight had made the sea crossing from Turkey after March 20, she said.

Asked if his gesture was not really so small as to be insignificant, Pope Francis told reporters flying to Rome with him and the refugees that people used to tell Blessed Teresa of Kolkata that what she was doing was meaningless when there was an ocean of need in the world.

"And she responded, 'It's a drop in the ocean, but after this drop, the ocean won't be the same,'" the pope said. "I'll respond the same way. It's a little gesture. But all of us, men and women, must make these little gestures in order to extend a hand to those in need."

Osama said he was told at 10 p.m., April 15 that he, his wife and children -- Omar, 6, and Masa, 8 -- would be flying to Rome with Pope Francis the next day. Hasan said he was in a grocery store in Greece when he got the call.

When asked what he thought of the head of the Catholic Church sponsoring three Muslim refugee families, Osama said, "Peace has no religion. If you think about it, we are all human.

"The pope made a humanitarian gesture and it was so moving," he told reporters.

Nour, an engineer who studied in France and hopes eventually to go there, responded to a similar question by saying, "No other religious leader in the world helped us like the pope did."

Her husband, Hasan, said, "The pope is an amazing, amazing person, an incredible person. Every religious person should be like the pope.

"We are Muslim and, unfortunately, our people did not deal with us like the pope did," he said.

Hasan and Nour decided to take their 2-year-old son Riad and flee after they were stopped by members of the Islamic State. Hasan said he was told he must fight, "make jihad," but "I didn't want to kill anyone. I am an engineer, not a soldier, so I must escape from Syria."

He, too, dreams of peace, safety and a dignified life for his young family. But also of seeing his homeland again.

"You can find a new job maybe, you can find a new house, but you can't find a new family," he said.

Ramy, who was a teacher in Syria and has two teenage sons and a 5-year-old daughter, said being chosen to come to Italy "was God's blessing."

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Follow Wooden on Twitter @Cindy_Wooden.

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