(Nicole Winfield, Christina Malkia and Jean-Yves Kamale, AP) Pope Francis on
Wednesday urged Congo’s people to forgive those who committed “inhuman
violence” against them, celebrating a Mass for 1 million people and then
hearing first hand of the atrocities some of them have endured: a
teen-age girl “raped like an animal” for months; a young man who watched
as his father was decapitated; a former sex slave who was forced into
cannibalism. Congolese
from the country’s violence-wracked east traveled to the capital of
Kinshasa to tell the pope of the horrific violence they suffered for
years as rebel groups sought to gain territory in the mineral-rich
region through attacks that have forced more than 5 million people to
flee their homes. (...)
