When Pope Francis spoke against corruption during the Feb. 2 event, part of the crowd broke into a chant in the Lingala language directed at the country’s president and saying his mandate was over, according to the Associated Press.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi, who took office in January 2019, will be up for reelection in December.
Father Jean Baptiste Malenge, a delegate for the Congolese bishops’ conference and member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, told EWTN News that a group of students from the Institute Saint Eugène de Mazenod in Kinshasa broke out in a song they learned from the late Congolese Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo: “corruption, we refuse corruption,” adding, “thief, beware.”
Father Muluku, who is academic secretary general at the graduate school, was arrested with five of these students when he tried to protect them during the arrest.
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency’s senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.
