VATICAN CITY (RNS) — At a church in a Roman suburb on Sunday (May 4), Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of Kinshasa preached on a story from the Gospel of John in which Jesus’ followers in the days after his death returned to their day jobs, afraid to rile those who put Jesus to death. He used the passage to pray for God to embolden the cardinals gathered in Rome in their work electing a new pope.
“We ask that the Holy Spirit, who encouraged the apostles to challenge the fear and the ire of the authorities of the time, to enlighten our cardinals who will gather in two days to elect a pope for the universal church who has an unshakable faith and is ready to face the challenges of the world today,” Ambongo told the congregation at St. Gabriel the Archangel in Della Vittoria.
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Ambongo, considered a possible candidate to succeed Pope Francis, who died April 21, knows about the ire of the authorities. Appointed metropolitan archbishop of Mbandaka-Bikoro in 2016 and later vice president of that country’s bishops’ conference, Ambongo supported Catholic clergy and lay protests against President Joseph Kabila’s attempt to delay elections. Ambongo asked for an investigation to hold government forces accountable for violent suppression of pr …