Promoting impunity

The Catholic Church’s way of treating priests and nuns involved in Genocide crimes and genocide ideology remains questionable.

 

The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda is one of the worst genocides in history, with a level of violence that exceeded imagination. More than a million people were murdered within 100 days.

 

Religious leaders expected to save innocent victims did the opposite. The so-called men of God aided and abetted the killers, a serious diversion from the fundamentals of religion.

 

Meeting President Paul Kagame in May 2017, Pope Francis asked for forgiveness for the Catholic Church’s role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

“[The] sins and failings of the church and its members [had] disfigured the face of Catholicism,” the Pope said.

 

But his statement means nothing as long as the Church took no single step in sanctioning the priests and religious leaders involved in the Genocide. The Catholic Church perhaps fears to face such a shame and loss of those genocide perpetrators in service. But history testifies and truth hurts.

 

Among the eight basic elements of religion, the fourth is “sinful acts”. Every religion defines certain acts as righteous to be encouraged and others as sinful to be avoided. Most of the religions conceptualize heaven and hell due to this belief.

 

Taking a look at the 10 Commandments of God which can be referred as a ‘constitution’ to believers, the fifth asks us to “honor your father and mother”, the sixth warning to “not murder,” the eighth cautions to “not steal” while the ninth rebukes “bearing false witnesses against your neighbor.”

 

Genocide perpetrators murdered their parents, stole property, and fabricated false witnesses aiming at denying the Genocide against the Tutsi or promoting the heinous double genocide theory.

The genocidaires not only violate international laws, but also divine ones. The Catholic Church would have sanctioned the priests, nuns and churchgoers involved in genocide crimes, before being tried by courts.

 

However, decades later, the Church remains silent. These criminals are still serving in various positions within the Catholic Church as if nothing happened.

 

 Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka continued to serve as a priest at Gisors Parish in Evreux Diocese of France, despite being a Genocide suspect.

 

Munyeshyaka was head of the Sainte-Famille parish in Kigali during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, when thousands of victims went to seek protection there. In collaboration with former Prefect of Kigali, Tharcisse Renzaho, Munyeshyaka is accused of killing Tutsi refugees and raping Tutsi women who sought refuge at the nearby St. Paul Center and at the church he led.

 

The fate of hundreds of the Tutsi who took refuge in the Benedictine Sisters’ Monastery in Sovu and at their Health Center is well documented. The nun in charge of the monastery, Mukangango Consolata (Sister Gertrude) and her colleague Mukabutera Julienne (Sister Kizito) refused to receive them, but the Tutsi convincingly entered the monastery, while others went to the health center.

 

The massacres there, from April 22 to 25, 1994, saw the direct involvement of Gertrude, then 42, and Kizito who was 36. From April 17, 1994, more than 10,000 Tutsi started to flock to the monastery for safety. On April 25, the nuns poured fuel on the garage where the refugees were hiding and set it on fire. About 7,000 people died that day. Later, Sister Kizito who had a list took time as she checked to see if everyone on it was dead.

 

Today, the two nuns are serving the Church in Belgium despite having been convicted of Genocide crimes by a Brussels Court in 2001.

 

The case of Father Munyeshyaka and the two nuns is a drop in the ocean of Genocide suspects who still celebrate the Church’s rituals.

 

Coming to the last stage of genocide, denial, many priests often participate in ceremonies that promote the double genocide theory and denying the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi.

 

The recent incident of ‘commemoration of genocide against the Hutu’ on October 1, 2022, saw Father Jean Bosco Nsengimana Mihigo, praying for the participants including Father Thomas Nahimana.

 

If it is there to preach love and rescue sinners, the Catholic Church will hardly win Rwandans’ souls while promoting impunity.