Bakhita's legacy is that transformation is possible through suffering. Her story of deliverance from physical slavery also symbolises all those who find meaning and inspiration in her life for their own deliverance from spiritual slavery. In May 1992 news of her beatification was banned by Khartoum which Pope John Paul II then visited only nine months later. On 10 February 1993, he solemnly honoured Bakhita on her own soil. "Rejoice, all of Africa! Bakhita has come back to you. The daughter of Sudan sold into slavery as a living piece of merchandise and yet still free. Free with the freedom of the saints."