Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury Prepare for Historic Visit to South Sudan

Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will commence a historic joint-faith journey to South Sudan later this week as the Anglican and Catholic Churches combined for the "Pilgrimage of Peace" in collaboration with the Church of Scotland. 

The faith leaders will meet politicians, preachers, and people displaced by conflict and poverty within the country. However, the trip comes while comments by both clergymen on same-sex marriage and homosexuality linger in the background, threatening to raise tensions in the deeply conservative nation. 

Last week, Pope Francis said in an interview that homosexuality may be a sin but it should not be criminalized. “We are all children of God, and God loves us as we are and for the strength that each of us fights for our dignity,” he stated, clarifying that there is a difference between sin and crime. In South Sudan, homosexuality is a criminal offence with punishments ranging up to 14 years imprisonment. Whilst prosecution is rare, LGBTQ+ people and activists especially are victims of discrimination and attacks. 

Lord Welby was criticized by Archbishop Justin Badi Arama, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church in South Sudan, for “failing to defend biblical truth” and suggesting that Lord Welby's position was untenable after the Archbishop of Canterbury said earlier this month that he was hopeful that the Church of England will seek to bless same-sex marriages as a result of ongoing internal debates about whether or not to recognize them. While the campaign for marriage equality within the Anglican Communion was ultimately defeated, with concerns being raised about the consequences for the church in countries like South Sudan if same-sex marriages were allowed, a proposal has been put forward to allow simple blessings to be given to same-sex couples. 

The Anglican Communion – the collection of Anglican Churches around the world, of which the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury is head – claims up to 80 million worshipers, 75% of which are located within the Global South. The Catholic Church, which claims over 1.3 billion worshipers, has also seen the fastest growth of the religion within the Africa, and South Sudan has been a country which Pope Francis has expressed keen interest in visiting multiple times since he became Pope in 2013. However, due to political instability and obstacles with his health, the trips have been postponed until this year, when other Christian leaders were invited to join. 

South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011 following an independence referendum after a history of conflict with Sudan, but fell into a state of civil war by 2013. Peace efforts reached a ceasefire in 2018, but in the five years since the issues of poverty, devastation, hunger, and violent power struggles continue. 

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