"Even when it comes dressed in a tailored suit, carrying diplomatic credentials and smiling through its sins, Your Holiness the world stands at a precipice and Africa this battered and beautiful continent is not merely watching from below we are climbing. We are bleeding, we are rising, and we are daring to ask questions that echo louder than canon law. Where was the church when our presidents were overthrown by foreign-backed mercenaries? Where was the church when our youth were abducted and indoctrinated into wars funded by nations that pretend to be peacekeepers. Where was the church when our currencies collapsed? When the IMF choked our economies? When our leaders were punished for choosing sovereignty over submission? Do not tell us to forgive while the whip is still in the hand of the abuser."