An Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo last month has led Roman Catholics to stop administering several sacraments temporarily in an attempt to keep the deadly disease from spreading.

In Kenya, while leprosy has significantly declined, many elderly are still need of care.

Benue State is in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. This region, a hotbed of sectarian unrest, has suffered particularly because of clashes between largely Muslim Fulani cattle herders and mostly Christian farming communities.

Using pastoral letters and circulars with exhortations on civic duty, as well as pulpit and parish bulletin announcements, the church has been informing voters on the importance of exercising their right to vote.

Christian and Muslim leaders in the Central African Republic have accused foreign states of complicity in a May 1 gun and grenade attack on a Catholic Mass.

Bishop Gassis' visits came in the middle of decades of on-again, off-again fighting between the central government and several rebel movements in the South and other peripheral areas of the country.