When news trickled through last Friday that one of the country’s most celebrated clerics, Fr Ubald Rugirangoga, had died from respiratory complications linked to Covid-19 at University of Utah Hospital in the United States, many took to social media to express their grief and pay home to his legacy of love and forgiveness. 

Rugirangoga was a gift to Rwanda and humanity. Having lost his father as a seven-year-old in early 1960s in targeted ethnic killings and then his mother and many members of his extended family during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, he led by example forgiving those who killed his loved ones.

Fr Ubald, as he was fondly known as, was a compassionate man who paid school fees for the children of the man who had killed his mother during the Genocide.

The ‘Apostle of Forgiveness’ famously said during a TEDx Talk back in 2013 that ‘extreme horror requires extreme forgiveness’.

He was right. The present-day Rwanda is the product of the noblest of human values, like empathy, forgiveness, compassion, tolerance and accountability.  

As aptly put by Cardinal Antoine Kambanda as he eulogised the late Rugirangoga, ‘God gave him to us at the right time’ with the late clergyman playing an instrumental role in helping the country through its reconciliation and healing process in the aftermath of the Genocide against the Tutsi.

Father Ubald travelled the length and breadth of Rwanda preaching love, repentance, forgiveness and renewal to Genocide perpetrators, survivors and other Rwandans, making an important contribution to national unity and reconciliation efforts.

One of the recipients of Rwandan government’s Umurinzi w’Igihango (protectors of friendship pact) medals for their outstanding acts of humanity in the country’s tragic history, Father Rugirangoga also travelled the world sharing his story – which was essentially Rwanda’s story – and fulfilling his evangelisation and charismatic mission.

Yet, he remained humble and modest, and true to his roots, continuing to serve as a local priest in the rural Nyamasheke District, where he was not even the head of his parish.

In Fr Ubald Rugirangoga, we’ve a lot of lessons to learn – and reasons to be inspired to be the best we can as individuals and citizens. Rwanda needed people like Rugirangoga in his time and still does to date. We can all step up and carry on with his legacy of forgiveness, humility and kindness; a legacy of reaching and looking out for one another.