Pope Francis urges mutual forgiveness to end Congo conflict

1/2/2023 19:08

        Pope Francis on Wednesday urged people in Democratic Republic of Congo, where decades of armed conflicts have killed millions, to grant each other a
        "great amnesty of the heart" and called on Christians engaged in battle to lay down their arms.
        
        On the first full day of his trip, his third to sub-Saharan Africa as pope, Francis presided at an open air Mass for a crowd local authorities estimated at more than a million people on the grounds of a secondary airport in the capital Kinshasa.
        
        The Congolese have given the pope one of the most vibrant welcomes of his foreign trips. On his arrival on Tuesday, tens of thousands lined his motorcade route.
        
        At the sprawling site on Wednesday his popemobile moved slowly on the runway, with hundreds of thousands of people singing and dancing on either side before he began a Mass from a large altar platform.