A Sudanese court decision has sent the world into uproar when it issued a death sentence on a 27 year-old local woman for her refusal to recant her Christian faith. Mariam Yahya Ibrahim and her husband was beleaguered with the court sentence as she was charged with apostasy for marrying a Christian and is also subject to receive a hundred lashes.
African laws have long frowned on issues like homosexuality and modern culture. In Sudan, it is law that progeny should follow their paternal faith. In Mariam's case, her father is a Muslim while her mother, who had mostly raised her into the woman that she is, is an Orthodox Christian. Buzzfeed said that Mariam had converted to Catholicism in 2011 just before she married Daniel Bicensio Wani.
The couple, who now has two children, had escaped from the atrocity of Sudanese laws and tradition to Italy, and was given a welcoming gift in the process: an audience with Pope Francis.
According to Vatican spokesperson Father Federico Lombardi, the family had a 30-minute meeting with the pope at the latter's residence on Friday, and that the meeting was marked "affection" and "great serenity and joy." Telling Catholic News Service, he added that Mariam and the pope had a "beautiful conversation," no doubt focused largely on her unwavering faith in Christianity despite the possibility of a death sentence. Moreover, Lombardi said that Pope Francis had thanked the woman for her "her steadfast witness of faith," and in return, Mariam thanked the pontiff for the prayers and support she received from the Catholic Church during her ordeal.
Mariam's family's escape from Sudan was met with hurdles, so the meeting with Pope Francis was the gold pot at the end of a very dark rainbow. After being released from prison in Sudan on June 23 following international pressure received by the state government, Mariam and her family immediately fled the country. However, Catholic News Service said that the family was apprehended in Khartoum airport and was subsequently charged with possessing fake travel papers. Although she and her family were not detained, they were released into the custody of the US Embassy in the said country, as her husband is a US citizen. The Italian foreign ministry then worked with Khartoum officials to negotiate Mariam's family's travel to Europe. They later arrived in Rome on July 24 aboard an Italian government plane accompanied by Italian vice foreign minister Lapo Pistelli.
