The Role Of The Catholic Church In The Rwanda Genocide - Christianity Etc - Nairaland
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| The Role Of The Catholic Church In The Rwanda Genocide by ValentineMary(op): 4:46am On Apr 15, 2016 |
There is a Roman Catholic priest at a medieval church an hour's drive from Paris who has been indicted by a United Nations court for genocide, extermination, murder and rape in Rwanda . Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka was notorious during the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis for wearing a gun on his hip and colluding with the Hutu militia that murdered hundreds of people sheltering in his church. A Rwandan court convicted the priest of genocide and sentenced him in absentia to life in prison. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda spent years trying to bring him to trial. But the Catholic church in France does not see any of this as a bar to serving as a priest and has gone out of its way to defend Munyeshyaka. It's not an isolated case. After the genocide, a network of clergy and church organisations brought priests and nuns with blood on their hands in Rwanda to Europe and sheltered them. They included Father Athanase Seromba who ordered the bulldozing of his church with 2,000 Tutsis inside and had the survivors shot. Catholic monks helped him get to Italy, change his name and become a parish priest in Florence. After Seromba was exposed, the international tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, accused the Vatican of obstructing his extradition to face trial. The Holy See told her the priest was "doing good works" in Italy. Another Rwanda priest taken on in Italy is facing charges of overseeing the massacre of disabled Tutsi children. The Vatican's reluctance to confront the murderers in its midst is rooted in its refusal to face up to the church's complicity in mass murder. But as Rwanda marks the 20th anniversary of the genocide, the time has come for Pope Francis to follow his own lead on paedophile priests and apologise for the part played by the clergy in turning churches into extermination centres. The Vatican should accompany a plea for forgiveness with a calling to account of priests complicit in the killing. For two decades, the Vatican has maintained that, while individual clergy were guilty of terrible crimes, the church as an institution bears no responsibility. The Holy See would prefer the world to focus on the more than 200 priests and nuns killed in the genocide. But, while there is no doubt there were courageous members of the clergy, many Tutsi survivors regard the church as allied with the killers and culpability as beginning at the very top of the Catholic hierarchy in Rwanda. Archbishop Vincent Nsengiyumva was so closely attached to the Hutu power structure that for nearly 15 years he sat in the ruling party's central committee as it implemented the policies of discrimination and demonisation that laid the ground for genocide. His political affiliations left him well placed to at least try to urge the regime to stop the killing in 1994 and to have been a strong moral voice in public against the slaughter. Instead, he was incapable even of calling the massacres a genocide let alone condemning the politicians and military officers leading them. The archbishop became so compromised that witnesses said he stood by as Tutsi priests, monks and a nun were taken to be murdered. Many of Nsengiyumva's bishops and priests were apologists for the killers by falsely trying to pin blame for the massacres on Paul Kagame's mostly Tutsi rebel army. That sent a message to the murderers that the church was not going to judge them. Some openly said that God had abandoned the Tutsis. The Organisation for African Unity's report on the genocide described the church in Rwanda as carrying a "heavy responsibility" for failing to oppose, and even promoting, ethnic discrimination. It said the church offered "indispensable support" to the Hutu regime during the killing and described church leaders as playing "a conspicuously scandalous role" in the genocide by failing to take a moral stand against it. "This stance was easily interpreted by ordinary Christians as an implicit endorsement of the killings, as was the close association of church leaders with the leaders of the genocide," the report said. I went to see Munyeshyaka at his church in Gisors a few months ago. He denies the charges against him and defiantly defends carrying a gun during the genocide. He also remains unapologetically aligned with groups that keep alive the ideology that underpinned the genocide. Clearly Munyeshyaka is not going to apologise for his part in Rwanda's tragedy. All the more reason for the pope to acknowledge that the Catholic church failed in Rwanda in 1994, and continues to do so by protecting such priests. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/08/catholic-church-apologise-failure-rwanda-genocide-vatican 2 Likes 1 Share |
| Re: The Role Of The Catholic Church In The Rwanda Genocide by adenine02: 5:52am On Apr 15, 2016 |
funny enough most of those wu perpetrate d act were church goers |
| Re: The Role Of The Catholic Church In The Rwanda Genocide by delishpot: 5:54am On Apr 15, 2016 |
Well, the Catholic church NEVER punishes her priests NO MATER WHAT. Even if they rspe, kill and eat a new born baby. They will Never be punished. 1 Like |
| Re: The Role Of The Catholic Church In The Rwanda Genocide by DonMaxxy(m): 6:06am On Apr 15, 2016 |
There are elements of truth in the write up as we have seen the catholic church fp in many countries. Their support for Rafael Trujillo the dictator leader in Dominician republic was seen by all. In Apartheid South Africa, they also compromised the whole drama. It was only Archbishop Desmond Tutu a non catholic cleric that raised his voice and fought apartheid gallantly. Thats why South Africans dont play with Tutu and Mandela. I do not need to tell you that it was the Catholic church that impoverished Italy. We know of the Borgias and the Roveres etc. It was under Benito Mussolini that the Laetran treaty was signed making Vatican an Independent nation. Americans discovered this in time and said no to Cathoicism they even assasinated JFK their first catholic president. In China, when the Jesuits failed to Chritianize China,Chineese people enthroned Kung fu tzu as a god and embraced Confucianism wholeheartedly. Where is China today? they are world powers. Russia nearly wiped catholicism out of Russia and look at where Russia is today. Are they not faring well? Now in our Nigeria, the Catholic church is part of our woes. They have been taking sides with the governments at the centre since Abacha's days. Their hypercomplacency pisses me off a lot. Last year, while Cardinal Onaiyekan with Abudsalami and their peace commision was busy deceiving GEJ in the North, Mbaka was preoccupied with promoting PMB in the South. This NPC vanished after the 2015 elections and has since then kept mute to Agatu killings and the shiites massacre. Hassan Kukah, since he was given the red cap as the Bishop of Sokoto, stopped being the yeye activist he claimed to be. I no longer see his articles in the national dailies.If you dont know, some of us can tell you how OBJ helped make him a bishop. I can tell you what he said the day the CBCN recieved him into their fold. Fr. Mbaka who was barking at GEJ, has seen big time fp with PMB's regime and will not bark again. Or is he no longer in this country? it seems he buys pms #50 per litre. He promised his followers of an Eldorado Nigeria if PMB is elected. But what do they have now. Mbaka is a good man, he is a man of God, but talks from two sides of his mouth. His followers(umu ikuku) should help tame and educate him. And should he make noise again, i will personally show fulani herds men the route to his home country at Mbanabo in Agwu in Enugu state. They know what to do when they get there. Make una continue to use Jesus do business. I just dey happy i have never duped or deceived anybody using Jesus' name. He will surely pay you people. Criticsms are welcome. But before you talk, know you that some of us are custodians of history both sacred or religious history and secular history. 1 Like |
| Re: The Role Of The Catholic Church In The Rwanda Genocide by Ubenedictus(m): 10:10pm On Apr 15, 2016 |
delishpot:there was a time d cath church had prisons, then priest were certainly punished, those nolonger exist, wat they have a canonical penalties like interdicts, deposition and excommunication, those are d punishment and priest receive then till date. |
| Re: The Role Of The Catholic Church In The Rwanda Genocide by delishpot: 8:16am On Apr 16, 2016 |
Ubenedictus:Well, to me they are trying to launder their image. They have placed themselves above the laws of the land. |
| Re: The Role Of The Catholic Church In The Rwanda Genocide by Peritus(m): 2:43pm On Apr 16, 2016 |
delishpot:Not true. They punish them by stripping them off their ecclesiastical powers, ie. power to function as a priest. I know of one priest like that in my mum's village. He went to India (as story has it) and mixed his faith up with occultism. His congregation rejected him and stripped him off his privileges, yet he remains a priest because you can't "de-ordain" an ordained priest. |
| Re: The Role Of The Catholic Church In The Rwanda Genocide by Ubenedictus(m): 9:38pm On Apr 25, 2016 |
delishpot:If u convict a priest of a crime, he will do his alloted time. hw are they above the law. |
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