Solemn Mass in thanksgiving for birth of South Sudan

(July 11, 2011) A Vatican delegation, Catholic Church leaders of Africa and others marked thanksgiving day with a solemn Mass on Sunday in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, for the birth of the world newest nation the previous day. The declaration of independence by the Republic South Sudan on Saturday, July 9, came after South Sudanese voted to secede from the Arab-dominated north in a January referendum that was promised in a 2005 peace deal ending 5 decades of north-south civil war that cost two million lives. Present at the independence ceremony on Saturday in Juba was a papal delegation headed by Kenyan Cardinal John Njue, Arcivescovo di Nairobi. Among those who participated in Sunday’s Mass in the cathedral of Kator were Archbishop Paulino Lukudu Loro of Juba, Cardinal Njue the papal delegate and numerous other representatives of the Catholic Church in Africa. At the Mass took place in Juba, church bells across all dioceses of South Sudan rang out to mark thanksgiving day, remembering all the “martyrs” who laid down their lives in decades of civil war with the north. One of the numerous banners that adorned the streets of Juba read: From today, we no longer are second class Arabs but first class Africans.”