The apostolic visit of Pope Francis to Madagascar (7-8 September 2019) was a very significant event for the inhabitants of this country and also for the Daughters of St. Paul who carry out the Pauline mission on this huge island off the southeastern coast of Africa. As a preparation for the Pope’s visit, the sisters committed themselves to spreading his writings (encyclicals and apostolic exhortations) in the cities where they are present and also via the Internet. Because they felt it was important to let the general public know who Pope Francis is, our sisters published a biography of the Pope for adults and another for children.
In addition, people who wrote articles about Pope Francis were given the opportunity to distribute them in our Pauline book centers, each of which set aside a space to display material dedicated to the papal event. A flood of people from all the dioceses on the island poured into the capital, filled with a great desire to get to know Pope Francis and take home with them a souvenir of his visit.
As members of the episcopal commission for communications and also of the team of accredited photographers, the Daughters of St. Paul actively participated in the arrival of the Pope. They were entrusted with the service of distributing the speeches of the Holy Father and of the people who spoke at the various encounters to the journalists who came to Antananarive for media coverage of this event.
