“Stop threatening our people”: Catholic Bishop in South Sudan to Military, Armed Rebels

He added, “These farmers will be the ones to feed us in Yei because they will cultivate here in the bushes and bring food for us in the town.” 

The Local Ordinary of the Yei Diocese emphasized the need for peaceful co-existence, saying, “The peace that we want to live in should be the one we build from the ground with our people to talk to them and we will be like brothers and sisters. The peace that has been signed doesn’t reach here because people can’t still move freely.”

“I want to appeal to those in the local government, if you are assigned to work in your Payams please come and serve your people here; you need to come and see the situation your people are going through because you are appointed to help them when they are suffering,” he said.

The 51-year-old Catholic Bishop who started his Episcopal Ministry on May 15 continued, “Good politics is the one that brings service to our people because if your politics don’t bring service to your people, then they will reject you.”

He called for fraternity among community members, saying this can foster reintegration of returnees.

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“Let us work and prepare the ground for our people who were displaced as a result of the conflict to come back because they will not come back unless we prepare the ground for them,” the South Sudanese Bishop said, adding, “To prepare the ground we have to be brothers and sisters.”

He underscored the need for peaceful co-existence between security agencies and civilians. 

“Let the army respect our civilians because it’s the civilians that will feed the army,” Bishop Lodiong said, and posed, “If our army intimidates our civilians who will feed them?  This is the peace we want to build from the ground, not peace signed on papers and remaining in Juba.” 

“To all our Churches and the government in your various capacities, if you want our people from camps to return to their various places let us make this place conducive,” the Local Ordinary of the Yei Diocese said July 24.

He explained, “Nobody will come from the camp when there are no schools in the places destroyed. There are people who destroyed schools, health centers, even churches and you want the people to return home where they would live.”