ROME : On the Road Again

Feeling fit six months after major surgery, Pope John Paul II returns to Africa again this week to visit a rapidly growing church, to lend support to fledgling democracy and to appeal for better relations between Christians, Muslims and believers in traditional religions. About one African in seven is now a baptized Catholic, but the church’s major role in health and education gives it influence disproportionate to its size.

John Paul’s 10th visit to the continent takes him to largely animist Benin on Wednesday, and continues in mostly Christian Uganda. Both countries are emerging from dictatorships as part of a continental move toward democracy that John Paul applauds. The high point of the trip is apt to be a brief stop in war-torn Sudan that was added to the papal itinerary at the last minute. John Paul will meet in Khartoum with Arab leaders of a repressive Islamic government that has waged war for a decade against black Christians and animists in the Sudanese south.