Cardinal calls for end to ethnic hatred in Africa's Great Lakes area

Published: 2004-07-13

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- No amount of international aid and assistance can bring peace and prosperity to Africa as long as ethnic hatred and violence continue, the head of the Vatican's justice and peace office told Catholics in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. "I know you are tired of war and you cherish the desire to live in peace and security," Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told bishops and the faithful of Africa's Great Lakes region. "In the name of the Lord, the master of life, I exhort you: Stop hating one another and stop killing one another," he told the region's inhabitants during an early-July visit to Kinshasa, Congo. The cardinal urged the people to put down "your machetes, your hatchets, your Kalashnikovs and other weapons of destruction and death" and take up instruments for building peace and reconciliation. The text of the cardinal's July 4 speech to the gathering, sponsored by the Association of Episcopal Conferences of Central Africa, was released July 13 by his office.

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