Hymns, Hopes and Prayer: South Sudan Pins Dream of Peace on Pope’s Visit

“I pray that all may be one,” echoed the refrain at St Joseph’s Catholic Church in the capital Juba, as young dancers kicked up clouds of red dust, and a nun on conga drums provided rhythm.

Francis is expected to land in South Sudan on Friday for a three-day visit, the first by a pope to the mostly Christian country since it achieved statehood in 2011.

South Sudan’s journey since parting from Muslim-majority Sudan has been anything but peaceful, with civil war and ethnic bloodletting destroying any sense of the national unity heralded at independence. 

The pontiff’s visit is being hailed as a “peace pilgrimage” and there is widespread optimism that Francis can revive a lost spirit of brotherhood in the traumatized young country.

“We are very grateful, and hoping the pope’s visit will bring peace and renewal to our land,” Sister Sarah Gune Justin, a Catholic nun and enthusiastic soprano in the Juba choir, told AFP.

Christianity has a broad following in South Sudan and Francis is visiting with Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields.

The trip was originally planned for July 2022, but postponed due to the 86-year-old pontiff’s knee pain that has forced him to use a wheelchair in recent months. 

The overarching theme is reconciliation and the symbol of the visit — a dove and two shaking hands overlaid against an image of South Sudan — adorns billboards, clothing, and banners across Juba.

Sister Justin proudly unfurled a length of traditional cloth printed in yellow and blue, with a likeness of the pope, Welby and Greenshields beaming among the bright patterns.

“We know that with the coming of the holy father to our country… South Sudan is going to change. It is not going to remain the same as before,” she said.

Voices in harmony

The avenue to the Vatican embassy has been freshly tarmacked, a rare sight in a dusty city where most roads are unpaved and wandering goats’ shelter from the scorching sun under parked cars. 

Half of South Sudan’s 12 million people are Catholics, and devotees have begun arriving in Juba from across the country, and beyond, in anticipation of the historic visit.

In one closely watched pilgrimage, a group of young devotees is “walking for peace” from their homeland in Rumbek in the center of the country to Juba, a nine-day hike of more than four hundred kilometers (250 miles).

The pontiff’s visit will culminate in a mass on Sunday, where the Juba choir will provide the music, including liturgical numbers written just for the day. 

The 300-strong choir — volunteers drawn from across the city’s churches — was nervously anticipating this once-in-a-lifetime moment, said Andreas Mabior, the 45-year-old who leads the ensemble.

But more importantly, Mabior said the choir represented something rarer and more powerful in a country scarred by years of ethnic pogroms and brutality.

Hailing from all the country’s tribes, singing in harmony and unison, Mabior said they were a potent demonstration of what was possible when unity triumphed over division.

“We hope this visit is a great opportunity for the people of South Sudan to reconcile,” Mabior told AFP.