Rwandan Genocide Comes to Huant a Silent Catholic Church

I know appalingly little about the Rwandan genocide. Apparently the Catholic and Christian churches, at times, played a role in aiding the hatred that fueled the genocide, and at other times, directly in the killings.

Here are a few paragraphs from one recent news story:

Some Rwandans and human rights organizations believe that the Catholic Church should at least say something about its senior leaders that were openly close to or involved in MRND, the ruling party at time of the genocide.

“Powerful members of the church were active partners in a government that planned and executed a genocide”, says Rwandan historian and commissioner in the Rwandan National Human Rights Commission Tom Ndahiro. “The church says its clergy that participated in the genocide did so as individuals, but we haven’t even heard it condemn them in their individual capacities.”

In their report on the genocide ‘Leave none to tell the story’, New York based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’homme (FIDH) observed that in the run up to the genocide, the Rwandan leadership had “benefited enormously from the support of the Catholic church".

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The Organisation for African Unity (now the African Union) report on the genocide noted that: “since the end of the genocide, several parties have apologized for failing to stop the massacres, including President Clinton, Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Prime Minister of Belgium and the Anglican Church”, but pointed out that “no apology had yet come from the French Government or the Catholic Church”.

Two years after the genocide, the Pope Jean Paul II said clergy should accept responsibility as individuals. He denied any role or responsibility for the church. Critics of the Vatican argue that while the church has denied any institutional blame, it has paid legal fees for its clergy suspected of genocide, aided fugitives and discouraged its members from cooperating with genocide tribunals.

“The church denounces prosecutions or investigations of its clergy as politically motivated, yet it chooses to remain silent when they are convicted”, says human rights activist Ndahiro. “We haven’t heard calls encouraging its followers to assist the courts”.

You can read the rest of the story here.

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