As part of his October sabbatical, Cardinal Roger Mahony toured numerous places in Africa --- the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda --- where the Catholic presence is very much in evidence, notably in the work of Catholic Relief Services. In activities that included visiting a Missionaries of Charity home outside Bujumbura, Burundi; celebrating Mass in Kinshasa; and laying a wreath at a genocide memorial in Rwanda, the cardinal found the church responding to the needs of people who have known a uniquely frightening kind of desperation and tragedy, yet find hope in the presence of the Lord as manifested in the work of Catholics from around the world. |