Million of people celebrates Kinshasa Mass in DR Congo

• Pope Francis visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo on Wednesday.
• About a million people attended his Mass in Kinshasa.
• He sent a forceful message of peace to those who were waging war in the nation.

Pope Francis held one of his largest Masses in the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with about a million people in attendance.

Long before daybreak, huge crowds began to assemble in Kinshasa, including hordes of white-clad schoolgirls who danced besides the Pope’s path.

So that as many people as possible could attend, a holiday was designated.

The largest Catholic community in Africa, the DR Congo has about half of its inhabitants as Catholics.

Since the last pope travelled to the mineral-rich but violent nation, it has been more than 37 years.

For the occasion, a 700-person choir that had been rehearsing together since even before the pontiff was originally scheduled to visit last July, had been put together. Due to ill health, the Pope’s initial visit had to be postponed.

Despite rumors that the Pope had not been as harsh on the DR Congo’s political establishment as some had hoped, the Mass at N’dole airport was a joyous occasion, and the pope sent a forceful message of peace to those who were waging war in the nation.

On the second of his six-day visit to Africa, he said warring sides should forgive one another and grant their opponents a “great amnesty of the heart”.

He went on to espouse the benefits of cleansing one’s heart of “anger and remorse, of every trace of resentment and hostility”.

According to Christopher Lamb, the reporter for the Catholic magazine, Wednesday’s Mass was expected to be one of Pope Francis’ biggest-ever Masses, second only to one held in the Philippines in 2015.

Six million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have reportedly been forced to leave their homes.

Along with nations like Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Ukraine, this region has one of the biggest concentrations of internally displaced persons in the entire globe.

The eastern provinces of South Kivu, North Kivu, and Ituri are home to the majority of the displaced people.

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