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Solidarity with South Sudan (SSS), a Catholic collaborative entity of religious congregations involved in capacity building in the world’s youngest nation through education, health, agriculture and pastoral programs, has expressed readiness to adopt the new education curriculum, commending the government for introducing a student-centered approach to learning, a method that allows learners a level of independence designed to foster their creativity.
The collaborative association comprising men and women religious institutes and members of the Unions of Superiors General (USG) in partnership with the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SCBC) known as Solidarity with South Sudan (SSS) is seeking to engage a new Rome-based personnel to facilitate the flow of information between the various religious orders and the officials in South Sudan capital, Juba.
The Rome-based lay Catholic association dedicated to the provision of social services and arbitrating conflicts, Sant’Egidio Community has, in a two-day meeting at its headquarters with representatives of government and various opposition parties in South Sudan, facilitated an agreement to end hostilities and to allow “continued and uninterrupted humanitarian access” as the country prepares to form a unity government next month.
A month after the UN relief chief Mark Lowcock revealed that an estimated 168 million people across the globe will need humanitarian aid in 2020, the highest number in decades, four African countries are among eight nations that the UK-based Catholic Agency For Overseas Development (CAFOD) has earmarked for close humanitarian monitoring.
Sanctions on South Sudanese political leaders in recent times are part of the process of ensuring peace in the world’s youngest nation, Catholic Church officials working under the Conference of Bishops have told ACI Africa in interviews.
With the countdown to the possible formation of South Sudan’s unity government into the last full month after the latest 100-day extension, a group of opposition leaders is currently in Rome for a meeting under the auspices of Sant’Egidio Catholic community, a lay Catholic association dedicated to the provision of social services and arbitrating conflicts, ACI Africa has confirmed.
As the combined armed forces of Government and Opposition group kick-start military training as envisaged in the September 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), the Archbishop-elect of South Sudan’s Juba Archdiocese, Stephen Ameyu has called on South Sudanese soldiers to put the past behind and invest in peaceful co-existence through reconciliation.
The leadership of the Bari community in South Sudan has, in a letter, responded to critics who have termed members of the indigenous of Juba tribalists following letters signed by individuals belonging to the tribe, including some clergy of the Archdiocese of Juba, opposing the appointment of a non-Bari to head the Metropolitan see.
Several days after letters expressing rejection of a Papal transfer of a Bishop in South Sudan emerged, the heads of dioceses in Sudan and South Sudan constituting the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SCBC) have thrown their weight behind the Holy Father and his representatives in the world’s youngest nation and expressed regrets “with great humility the inappropriate language used” in two defamatory letters.
The December 17 announcement by South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and Vice-President designate Dr. Riek Machar that they have agreed to form a unity government by the February deadline has been described as a “positive” move by two South Sudanese clerics who have spoken to ACI Africa correspondent in Juba, the capital of the world’s youngest nation.
Leaders of Christian denominations in the world’s youngest nation have, in their collective Christmas message, to advocate for lasting peace in their country, imploring the parties in conflict to engage in dialogue and make compromises to facilitate the formation of a unity government envisaged in the September 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS).
On Thursday, December 12, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of two African Prelates and made three Episcopal appointments for the Church in Africa that included the transfer of the Local Ordinary of South Sudan’s Torit diocese, Bishop Stephen Ameyu to Juba Archdiocese and the naming of Fr. Daniel Nzika and Fr. Julius Yakubu Kundi as new Bishops in the Congo and Nigeria respectively.
Weeks after a South Sudanese Bishop recommended that the controversy around boundaries and the number of states in his country be resolved through engaging citizens in a poll, the Government of the world’s youngest nation announced Friday, December 6 that the divisive issue of states will require a referendum, a move the Bishop has once again welcomed.
In the context of the United Nation’s (UN) International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women marked on November 25, the UN Peacekeeping Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) reached out to the clergy, religious, and laity ministering in the Catholic diocese of Rumbek in a four-day training focusing on ways to deal with Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), a participant has told ACI Africa.
Following reports that the government of South Sudan recently released US$40 million out of the pledged US$ 100 million to the National Pre-Transitional Committee (NPTC), an entity created to facilitate the implementation of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS), Church officials in the world’s youngest nation have called for transparency and accountability on the part of those at the helm of NPTC.
Days after leaders of the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC) welcomed the second postponement of the formation of a unity government contemplated in the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS), a Catholic official of the seven-member ecumenical body used the occasion of the General Assembly of Pentecostal Overseers to outline and explain three pillars guiding the efforts by the Christian churches toward peace in the East African nation.
Three days after Pope Francis led Catholic faithful in praying for peace and reconciliation in South Sudan and expressed the hope to visit the East African country, the Holy Father has reconfirmed his desire to realize the trip to the world’s youngest country and disclosed that it would be a joint pastoral visit, together with the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, Archbishop Justin Welby.
As the countdown of the 100-day extension of the formation of a unity government in South Sudan got underway on Tuesday, November 12, the Catholic Church in the world’s youngest nation set out to distribute two sets of booklets containing “factual” information about the peace process including the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan.
A day after South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit and the Vice-President designate Dr. Riek Machar agreed to postpone the formation of a unity government by 100 days, a move that has been welcomed by various groups including Christian leaders, the country’s capital hosted a marathon that attracted some 1,000 participants among them, the 84-year Bishop Emeritus of Torit diocese, Paride Taban.
One of the reasons for the latest postponement of the formation of a unity government in South Sudan, a power-sharing government that would see the leader of opposition Dr. Riek Machar sworn in a Vice-President, is the arrangement of the boundaries of states in the world’s youngest country, including the number of states.