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The Catholic Leader, April 21, 2019
www.catholicleader.com.auNews
FOR 100 days, twenty-five years
ago, Rwanda succumbed to a geno-
cide frenzy in which the Hutu ethnic
majority slaughtered the minority
Tutsi community as well as their
Hutu political opponents.
The killings lasted from April 7 to July 15,
1994.
The death toll is uncertain, but the estimates
say about 800,000 people were killed.
The brutality was immense – Hutu husbands
killed their Tutsi wives, neighbours killed neigh-
bours and priests and nuns have been convicted
of murder, sometimes against those sheltering in
their churches.
The systematic killing was advanced by
organised lists of targets, public distribution of
weaponry, an existing ethnic identification card
system, radio and newspapers calling for specific
and general racial cleansing, and state-led militia
groups.
Today, the wounds are far from healed.
But instead of burying the past, the Rwandan
people have made efforts to ensure the genocide
was never forgotten or repeated.
And more than this, Rwanda is on a path of
forgiveness.
Reconciliation villages have cropped up in
Rwanda where family members of genocide
victims live alongside recently released prisoners
who participated in the killings.
There are stories of neighbours who murdered
each other’s family members living peacefully
side-by-side.
Pope Francis visited in 2017 and asked for
forgiveness for the Church’s role in the genocide.
“(Pope Francis) implored anew God’s forgive-
ness for the sins and failings of the church and its
members, among whom priests and religious men
and women who succumbed to hatred and vio-
lence, betraying their own evangelical mission,” a
Holy See spokesman said.
But, many are just left wondering how the
genocide happened.
The causes were manifold – decades of ethnic
tension since Belgian colonisation and a hateful
program of propaganda by extremist ideologues.
Fr Donald Zagore, a theologian missionary
and Society of African Missions member said the
genocide was a failure of evangelisation in Africa.
“Unless the Gospel touches the heart it fails to
bring about in-depth change in the person, it is
simply superficial and understood only in material
terms of prosperity and miracles, a nation can
be almost 90 per cent Christian as in the case of
Rwanda, with churches overflowing, but at the
same time with ruthless men and women ready
to kill one another with the machete,” Fr Zagore
told Fides.
“We must acknowledge with humility… that
‘The enormous challenge for missionary activity today in Africa is to lead
our Christian communities to an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ’
Rwandan genocide uncovers
the depths of reconciliation
the Rwandan genocide revealed the failure of
evangelisation in Africa.
“It is the sad reality of a continent profoundly
spiritual and religious in form but often far
from Jesus Christ in the concrete reality of
daily life.
“We, as Missionaries of Africa, have toiled at
length and continue to build places of worship
and other constructions when the priority is to
build Christian communities.
“Sadly we must admit, some missionaries
came to Africa carrying money instead of the
Holy Spirit.”
Fr Zagore said at the heart of the failure was
the prosperity Gospel. To counter this, he said,
the continent must embrace Christ.
“Conversion means an encounter with Jesus
Christ,” he said.
“The salvation of Africa lies not in the
money of the missionaries or the gospel of
prosperity but in Jesus Christ.
“The enormous challenge for missionary
activity today in Africa is to lead our Christian
communities to an authentic encounter with
Jesus Christ.”
Remembering:
A woman lights a candle during a vigil marking the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide at Amahoro stadium in Kigali,
Rwanda, on April 7.
Photo: CNS
Murder:
A young Rwandan stares at bodies in a mass grave on July 20, 1994. Rwandans are
marking 25 years since a genocide that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Horror times:
A Rwandan
man carries
the body
of his child
who died
of cholera
in July 29,
1994.
Memorial:
The skulls of victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda at the Kigali Memorial Centre in
Kigali, Rwanda.