Pope visits Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius | …

From Rome

Pope Francis will leave on September 4 in Africa to visit three countries, Mozambique, Madagascar and the Republic of Mauritius. He will make his sixth trip abroad in 2019, after visiting Panama in January, the United Arab Emirates in February, Morocco in March, Bulgaria and North Macedonia in May and Romania. in June.

It's Francisco's 31st trip out of Italy. Since the beginning of his pontificate in 2013, he has traveled to 42 countries around the world, including 8 from Latin America. But he never decided to go to Argentina.

In Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius, three countries in South-East Africa and two of them will have six days to return to Rome on 10 September. It will have a lot to do in the Vatican in the coming days of September. From 6 to 27 October, the World Synod on the Amazon is scheduled. It will bring together bishops and cardinals from around the world, to whom will most likely be added Amazonian Experts An unprecedented event in the history of the Church and which takes today even more of The importance of the mbadive fires that are destroying the world's green lung and the controversy over how the world and Brazil in particular are tackling the problem.

Ecologist since the beginning of his papacy, Francisco demonstrated it by dedicating his first encyclical to the ecological question. In "Laudato si", published in 2015, the pope mentioned St. Francis of Assisi – who, besides promoting poverty in the Church, was a true mediaeval ecologist – and spoke of " the "sister earth", "our common home", which protests against all the harm that men cause to it because of the irresponsible use of the goods that God has put at its disposal.

This is not the first time that Francisco visits African countries. It was in 2015 in Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic and in 2017 in Egypt and Morocco.

In the three countries of this trip, which have gone through a serious crisis this year because of two major cyclones, Pope Francis will meet an old Catholic church, because its foundations date back to the end of 1400 but also to 1600 A Catholic church fundamentally linked to the missionary activity of congregations such as the Jesuits – a congregation to which Francis belongs – the Dominicans and Lazarists of the Congregation of the Mission.

In Mozambique, a country of just over 30 million inhabitants, the Catholic Church has about 6 million baptized. Other religions prevalent throughout the country are Islam and Pentecostal Christian churches. Francisco will arrive in Maputo, the capital, in the afternoon of September 4, where, in addition to meeting as usual with the local authorities, he will meet young people of different religions, but will also visit the sick of a hospital on the outskirts of Maputo. in a neighborhood where the Catholic Sant Egidio organization in Rome has been fighting AIDS for years.

On Saturday 7, he will go to Antananarivo, capital of the Republic of Madagascar, a treasure trove of biodiversity, rich in animals and plants that rarely exist in other countries, where the majority of the population is Christian. In addition to formal meetings with local authorities, you will visit the barefoot Carmelite monastery, then, among other activities, the tomb of Victoire Rasoamanarivo, a symbol of local Catholics. Victory Rasoamanarivo, a native of Madagascar, became a Catholic at the age of 15 and since then she has devoted her life to helping the poor and the sick. She was beatified by John Paul I during his visit to the island in 1989.

The 9th will be in the Republic of Mauritius, a small island in the Indian Ocean, opposite Madagascar, where the Catholic Church arrived in the 17th century with the Jesuits who celebrated the first Mbad in 1616. The Catholicism is also the main religion. Christianity but Hinduism is the most widespread religion. Mauricio went through history in the hands of different colonizers, from Portuguese to Dutch, through French and English. He was declared independent only in 1968 and was part of the British Commonwealth (the trade and political badociation uniting all former British colonies) in 1992.

In Port-Louis, capital of the island, besides the official activities and the meeting with the bishops, the program includes a private visit to the sanctuary of Father Jacques Laval, a French priest and missionary who arrived in Mauritius in the 17th century to convert aboriginals local. He was proclaimed blessed by John Paul II in 1979.

Francisco returns to Rome on September 10th.