Pope reaches out on African pilgrimage

THOUSANDS OF African Christians will line the road leading to the airport in Kinshasa, Zaire, today to give Pope John Paul a rousing welcome on the first day of his African tour.
I le can expect similar scenes at each stage of his I I-day pilgrimage which he has said is intended "to pay homage to all Africa and to express my sincere affection for all the inhabitants of the beloved continent."
The journey will take him to Zaire. the People's Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Ghana. Upper Volta and the Ivory Coast. lie will return to Rome on May 12. The Pope is likely to use the trip to reaffirm his commitment to social and economic justice for developing countries and to underline the continuing role of missionaries in Africa.
The first four days in Zaire will give him a vivid impression both of the vitality of the local church and of the social problems facing the whole continent. One of Africa's largest countries it also has the largest Catholic population with about 45 per cent of the 27 million people being Catholics.
It also has a large number of syncretic sects which combine aspects of Christianity with traditional African beliefs and rituals. The best known of these, Kimhanguism, now has about three million members.
Relations between Church and state in Zaire have been uneasy since independence in 1960. In 1974 religious instruction was forbidden in schools, including church schools and the churches banned from participation in a national education system.
However, now the Catholic Church and the Kimbanguist organisations are the only national institutions which remain independent of the partygovernment structure headed by President Mobutu Sese Seko. Freedom of religion was reaffirmed in the revised constitution of February 1978.
In common with many other African countries Zaire has suffered from a series of violent upheavals which seriously damaged its economic progress.
The African journey is the Pope's fifth trip outside Italy since he took office in October 1978 and may well prove to he the most colourful of them all. Later in the year is planning to visit France, Latin America for the second time and the Philippines.