Vatican Officially Announces Pope’s Maiden Visit to Africa, Precises Dates

CANAA || By Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla, Nairobi || 10 September 2015

The Press Office of the Holy See has officially announced the pastoral visit of Pope Francis to Africa, the first to the continent since he became Pope, giving the precise dates when the Holy Father will visit three African countries.

The announcement was made in a two-sentence statement on Thursday, indicating that the planned six-day pastoral visit would run from 25 November to 30 November.

“Accepting the invitation issued by the respective Heads of State and the Bishops, His Holiness Francis will make an Apostolic Trip to Kenya from 25 to 27 November 2015, Uganda from 27 to 29 November, and the Central African Republic from 29 to 30 November,” reads the first sentence of the statement as reported by Vatican Information Service.

The second sentence indicated that “the programme of the trip will be published in due course.”

The Holy Father gave the strongest hint at visiting Africa on January 19, when he was returning from his weeklong pastoral in Asia, responding to a question from the Associated Press AP journalist Nicole Winfield, aboard the Papal Plane.

He indicated then that he would visit Uganda and the Central African Republic (CAR).

“I think it will be towards the end of the year because of the weather,” Pope Francis was quoted as saying, explaining that the trip to Africa had “been a bit delayed due to Ebola.”

It was on June 12 that the Holy Father confirmed his maiden trip to Africa and indicated the possibility of adding Kenya to the programme.

"If God permits it I will be in Africa in November, in the Central African Republic and in Uganda," the Pope was quoted as saying when he was addressing a gathering of priests from around the world at Saint John Lateran basilica in Rome.

Kenya

“As far as I am concerned, when I was first informed in the middle of June (2015), the capitals of the three countries were on the Pope’s planned trip: Nairobi, Kampala, and Bangui,” the Nuncio in Kenya, Archbishop Charles Daniel Balvo, told CANAA in an interview last month.

The Bishops in Kenya have officially announced Pope’s pastoral visit to their country through a letter addressed to “Christians, fellow Kenyans and the family of God,” in which they attribute the Papal trip to the invitation they extended to him during their Ad Limina visit in April.

Uganda

Last year, the Bishops in Uganda had invited the Holy Father for the Golden Jubilee of the canonization of the Uganda Martyrs, 22 Catholic and 23 Anglican martyrs executed on the orders of King Mwanga II of Buganda Kingdom between 1885 and 1887 after they refused to recant their Christian faith.

The martyrs were canonized on October 18, 1964 by Pope John Paul VI.

These martyrs, as well as the two who were speared to death in Paimol, Gulu, North Uganda in 1918 and beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 20, 2002, are honoured on June 3 every year.

Central African Republic (CAR)

CAR is emerging from an atrocious conflict that pitted Christian anti-balaka militias against mostly Muslim Seleka rebels, a wave of violence that saw thousands killed.

In May this year, the Holy Father thanked the Bishops in CAR, who were in Rome during their Ad Limina visit, for their courageous testimony during the period of strife and assured his closeness to “those who for too many months have been enduring a difficult and painful situation.”

“Given the social and political difficulties in CAR, living together has been challenge. I hope his visit will help us go back and look how we can deepen peace, reconciliation and interfaith dialogue,” Bishop Nestor-Desire Nongo Aziagbia of Bossangoa has been quoted as saying.

“I think it was in relation to the political situation in Central African Republic, the serious unrest, the violence, that was a concern to him (Pope Francis),” the Nuncio in Kenya told CANAA in an interview last month.

“These kind of things, migrants, immigrants, places where there is some social unrest, are of special concern to him. If people can remember, the first trip out of Rome that he made was to the small island of Lampedusa, where many of the migrants on these ramshackle boats that leave the North African coast often end up,” the Nuncio in Kenya explained to CANAA in the interview.

Pope Francis’ visit to the three African countries is expected to inspire deeper faith among the Catholics and encourage the influence of gospel values in these societies.