Zero Tolerance for Homosexuality. South Sudan Just Told the Pope "No"

Zero Tolerance for Homosexuality. South Sudan Just Told the Pope “No”
L'Espresso (Italian progressist weekly news magazine)

His January 24 interview with the Associated Press has made no small mess for Pope Francis, ahead of his February 3 arrival in Juba, South Sudan, the second stop, after Congo, on his upcoming trip to Africa.

In the interview, the pope said plain and simple that “homosexuality is not a crime,” and therefore “it is unjust” that “more than 50 countries” should condemn and punish it, including “ten or twelve, more or less,” even with the death penalty.

And therefore, he went on to say, the bishops of these countries must react against these laws and the culture that produces them.

These words of the pope have made their way around the world and have also reached South Sudan, where homosexuality is a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison. And on Friday January 27, at a press conference following a cabinet meeting headed by President Salva Kiir, Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth said: “If he (Pope Francis) is coming here and he tells us that marriage of the same sex, homosexuality is legal, we will say no.”

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Note: President Kiir is a Roman Catholic. Also, South Sudan is majority Christian and split off from Muslim Sudan.