Prior to 1964, no pope had left Italy for 150 years. The advent of the 747 and long-haul flights enabled popes to finally visit the world, and the world to visit the pope.

In the D.R.C., Pope Francis has shown his advanced age and physical mobility problems have not limited his extraordinary capacity to console the afflicted, call evildoers to conversion and sustain the faithful in hope.

The contemporary tension in South Sudan has a complex and disturbing history.

Toussaint Kafarhire Murhula, S.J., a priest in the Democratic Republic of Congo, describes the joy of Congolese people at the pope's visit and his hopes for what the pope's journey might bring.

”Hands off Africa!” Pope Francis said on the first day of his visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Stop choking Africa: It is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered.”

The decision comes at a time when Cardinal Ouellet is pursuing a defamation case against a Canadian woman church worker, who had accused him of unwanted sexual touching.