Pope
Francis has pleaded for forgiveness for 'the sins and failings of the
Church and its members' implicated in the 1994 Rwanda genocide that
killed about 800,000 people.
Pope
Francis talks with Rwanda's President Paul Kagame during a private
meeting at the Vatican March 20, 2017. (Photo: Reuters/Tony Gentile)
Pope Francis asked for forgiveness on Monday for the "sins and failings of the Church" during Rwanda's 1994 genocide, saying he hoped his apology would help heal the African state's wounds.
But Rwanda's government indicated it felt the apology did not go
far enough, saying the local Church was still complicit in protecting
the perpetrators of the genocide.
At a meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Pope Francis said
that priests and Roman Catholic faithful had taken part in the slaughter
of some 800,000 people from the ethnic Tutsi minority as well as
moderates from the Hutu majority.
"(The pope) implored anew God’s forgiveness for the sins and
failings of the Church and its members, among whom priests, and
religious men and women who succumbed to hatred and violence," the Vatican said in a statement.
Pope
Francis poses with Rwanda's President Paul Kagame and his wife
Jeannette during a private meeting at the Vatican March 20, 2017
An official Rwandan statement repeated the government's long-standing accusation of Catholic complicity in the massacres.
"Today, genocide denial and trivialization continue to flourish
in certain groups within the Church and genocide suspects have been
shielded from justice within Catholic institutions," said a government statement.
Kagame, a Tutsi, led a rebel force to halt the slaughter in 1994
and accusations immediately surfaced that some priests and nuns had
taken part in the killings.
Some of the ugliest massacres were committed in churches, missions
and parishes where Tutsis who took shelter were hunted down by extremist
Hutu militias.
A U.N. court in 2006 jailed a former Catholic priest for 15 years
for ordering bulldozers to level a church, killing 2,000 people who were
hiding inside.
Rwandan authorities have said other clergy implicated in the
killings were allowed to start new lives in Europe and were protected by
the Church.
Pope
Francis talks with Rwanda's President Paul Kagame as he receives a gift
during a private meeting at the Vatican March 20, 2017.
(Photo:Reuters/Tony Gentile)
A Rwandan military court sentenced a missing priest in absentia to
life in prison on charges of rape and delivering Tutsi refugees from his
church to militias who killed them.
Later arrested in France, where he was a popular priest in a rural
parish, his case was eventually dropped and he was allowed to remain
working at the parish. He has denied the charges.
The Catholic Church in Rwanda last year offered an apology, saying
some of its members had fanned the ethnic hatred that led to the
killings, but Kagame said at the time that he wanted the pope himself to
say sorry.
"Why doesn't he apologize like he does with other cases where more minor crimes were committed by comparison with here?," he said, referring to sexual abuse cases where the pope has regularly apologized to victims and their families.
Francis said on Monday he hoped his "humble recognition of the
failings of that period, which, unfortunately, disfigured the face of
the Church, may contribute to a 'purification of memory' and may
promote, in hope and renewed trust, a future of peace".
Credits: Reuters
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