{"id":62479,"date":"2023-01-31T18:31:46","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T15:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kfm.co.ug\/?p=62479"},"modified":"2023-01-31T18:32:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T15:32:07","slug":"62479","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/62479\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope arrives in DR Congo on ‘beautiful trip’ to Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By AFP<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pope\u00a0Francis landed in the Democratic Republic of Congo Tuesday, hailing his “beautiful trip” to Africa as he comes bearing a message of peace to the conflict-torn nation and its troubled neighbour South Sudan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Large crowds of well-wishers gathered at Kinshasa’s Ndjili airport, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the centre, to\u00a0greet the Argentine pontiff, whose plane touched down at 2:35 pm local time (1:45 pm GMT).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“We’ve been waiting for a year, it’s a beautiful trip,” the 86-year-old\u00a0pope\u00a0told reporters travelling aboard his plane.<\/p>\n

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It is the first time since 1985 that a\u00a0pope\u00a0has visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, a desperately poor country of about 100 million people, 40 percent of whom are Catholic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see him face to face,” Maggie Kayembe, a woman in her thirties, told\u00a0AFP<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0as she waited for the\u00a0pope. “He always preaches peace wherever he goes, and peace, we really need it,” she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The six-day trip to DRC and South Sudan had been planned for July 2022, but postponed due to the pontiff’s knee pain that has forced him in recent months to use a wheelchair.\u00a0 Read more<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By AFP Pope\u00a0Francis landed in the Democratic Republic of Congo Tuesday, hailing his “beautiful trip” to Africa as he comes bearing a message of peace to the conflict-torn nation and its troubled neighbour South Sudan. Large crowds of well-wishers gathered at Kinshasa’s Ndjili airport, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the centre, to\u00a0greet the Argentine pontiff, whose plane touched down at 2:35 pm local time (1:45 pm GMT). “We’ve been waiting for a year, it’s a beautiful trip,” the 86-year-old\u00a0pope\u00a0told reporters travelling aboard his plane. It is the first time since 1985 that a\u00a0pope\u00a0has visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, a desperately poor country of about 100 million people, 40 percent of whom are Catholic. “I didn’t want to miss […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":62480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"2","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"0","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-normal","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"F j, Y g:i a","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"3","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[459],"class_list":["post-62479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-pope-francis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kfm.dembefm.ug\/staging_h\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}