Archbishop in South Sudan Urges Religious, Political Leaders to Work Toward Lasting Peace

He added, “If all of us are Christians in this state, we will have peace but because we are men and women who have not accepted the word of God in our hearts fully, we have problems.”

“The Lord says to us, we must be messengers of peace,” the Local Ordinary of South Sudan’s only Metropolitan See told the inhabitants of Lakes State, one of the East-Central African country’s administrative region that continues to be disturbed by intercommunal conflicts.

In his homily during the ordination Eucharistic celebration, the Archbishop told the faithful that the word of God is the one that can transform people’s hearts because it unlocks traditional ways of putting people into clans and tribes alongside other distinguishing identities.

“In the Church of Christ, there is no clan,” he said and added, “There is no tribe and there is even no nation, we are a universal Church.”

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“It is only by accepting ourselves as people of God belonging to one family, one nation and one Church, that we can say the Kingdom of God is at hand,” Archbishop Ameyu who was recently appointed the Apostolic Administrator of Wau Diocese said.

Making emphasis on embracing peace as people of God in the Diocese of Rumbek, the Archbishop said that with the sacrament of Baptism, “we are expected to be transformed by the word of God and by the sacrament of Baptism.”

He further said that Baptism takes away the sins of ancestors and also individual sins and added, “water (of Baptism) is thicker than blood because it makes us pure.”

The 56-year-old South Sudanese Archbishop called upon the parents of the newly ordained Deacon Joseph Mou Majak and Deacon Stephen Mangar Machar to leave their children to God and detach them from traditions that do not conform to Christian values.

“One of those traditions may be that a young man cannot die without having children,” Archbishop Ameyu said and added, “Remember this dear people of God, these two young men are no more to your tradition but from the tradition of Christ.”

He emphasized, addressing himself to the parents of the new Deacons, “These are no more your children, these are the children of God, and these are the children of the Catholic Church.”

“There is nothing called marriage here now, you are not going to do it in secret that my son is a Priest and so let me marry for him a woman so that he will leave with the children,” he went on to caution members of the two families.

He explained, “Priests of the lord are to dedicate themselves for Christ, Christ and His Church and they have to live like Christ himself, very chaste.”