The prefect for the Dicastery of Integral Human Development at the Vatican His Eminence Michael Cardinal Czerny who is on Solidarity visit to South Sudan has blessed a new boat of Malakal Diocese named Saint Bakhita.
Saint Bakhita’s boat, which will be taking over five hundred people, is the project of Makala with Support from the Dicastery of Integral Human Development at the Vatican.
Cardinal Michael Czerny states that the Gospel of St. Luke helps people to appreciate the importance of the boat to easier river transport.
Cardinal Czerny says the storms at the sea are the representation of the treble conflicts and suffering that South Sudan has heard.
“The Gospel which we have heard helps us to appreciate how important this boat is because we can think that the storms at sea are a symbol, a representation of the treble conflicts and suffering which South Sudan has heard.”
He states that the St. Josephine Bakhita boat will be doing the work of the Church and it will be a boat that leaves behind the storms of conflicts in South Sudan.
“This boat which will be called St. Josephine Bakhita, will be doing the work of the Church and it will be a boat which leaves behind the storms of conflicts, of violence, and will be servicing into more peaceful water where people can live together as brothers and sisters.”
The prefect for the Dicastery of Integral Human Development believes that the boat will be a sign of God’s love to the people of South Sudan.
“We are very grateful for this boat, and we are very grateful for the good that it will do, and we are grateful now for God’s blessings so that this boat may always serve the purpose for which it was made, and then it may indeed be a sign of God’s love, a sign of Jesus’s presence.”
Cardinal Michael blessed the boat on Friday after his visit to Malakal and Ruweng to see the situation of the refugees and returnees fleeing from Sudan’s conflicts.