Catholic Church seeks genocide forgiveness for Christians

pulse

November 21, 2016 5:55 PM

Around half of Rwandans are Catholic, but since the genocide many of them have turned to pentecostal churches.

Rwanda's 1994 genocide killed about 800,000 people

The Catholic Church in Rwanda has again asked for forgiveness "for all Christians" implicated in the 1994 genocide that killed around 800,000, the head of the country's bishops commission said Monday.

A letter of apology signed by the bishops representing the nine dioceses in Rwanda, a copy of which AFP received, had been read in all churches on Sunday marking the end of the Holy Year of Mercy declared by Pope Francis.

"We ask for forgiveness for all Christians who were involved in the genocide," said the bishops commission president Philippe Rukamba, recalling that the Church had already called for understanding in 2000.

The bishop added however that the Church was seeking forgiveness for individuals and not for the institution as such. "The Church did not participate in the genocide," he said.

That comment came after Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said on Twitter late Sunday: "The Catholic Church of Rwanda apologises for its role in the 1994 genocide, 22 years later! Better late than never!"

Since the genocide, whose victims were mostly from the Tutsi minority, the Catholic Church has been accused of being close to the Hutu extremist regime in power in 1994 and some of its priests and other clergy were implicated in the massacres.

A number of churches became scenes of mass killings as the Hutu militiamen found people seeking refuge there, sometimes turned over by the priests, with no way out.

Several Catholic priests as well as nuns and brothers were charged with participating in the genocide and tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and by a Belgian court, leading to some convictions while others were acquitted of the charges.

The highest-ranking Church official to be tried for genocide was the late bishop Augustin Misago, who was acquitted and freed from prison in June 2000.

During the 20th anniversary commemorations in April 2014, Rwandan President Paul Kagame accused the Catholic Church of having "participated fully" in establishing the colonial ideology that created the divide between Hutus and Tutsis which he claimed led to the genocide.

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