Nearly eight years after a brutal civil war in Sierra Leone, many people who fled the country have returned, although they struggle to survive amid a shattered economy, Archbishop Edward Tamba Charles of Freetown and Bo said. In an interview on Sept. 21, the archbishop described a country that is still recovering from a war that left tens of thousands of people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands more. Among the surprising results of the war’s end is the growth of the Catholic Church, in part because of the conversions of people who relied upon the church for assistance during the war. “The church stood by them,” Archbishop Charles said, “and the experience of war brought some people to their faith.” Although Catholics make up only about 8 percent of the population in Sierra Leone, rebels considered the church a threat during the 11-year civil war. Priests and religious were expelled from the country, and church property was looted and vandalized.
Sierra Leone Struggles After Civil War
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
Around the affluent world, new hostility, resentment and anxiety has been directed at immigrant populations that are emerging as preferred scapegoats for all manner of political and socio-economic shortcomings.
“Each day is becoming more difficult, but we do not surrender,” Father Igor Boyko, 48, the rector of the Greek Catholic seminary in Lviv, told Gerard O’Connell. “To surrender means we are finished.”
Many have questioned how so many Latinos could support a candidate like DonaldTrump, who promised restrictive immigration policies. “And the answer is that, of course, Latinos are complicated people.”
Catholic voters were a crucial part of Donald J. Trump’s re-election as president. But did misogyny and a resistance to women in power cause Catholic voters to disregard the common good?