GASABO - Monsignor Léonard Rubumbira the greatly popular priest, father, guardian, mentor and brother to hundreds, probably thousands, of Rwandans, formerly refugees in Uganda, now home, is no more!

"We wish to inform you that our dear Father and brother ‘Padiri’ Léonard Rubumbira is no more! He joined His Creator on Monday, June 23 at night.’

This was the message that circulated on peoples’ e-mails and on mobile phones immediately after midnight on the same day the dynamic priest who dedicated more than half a century of his life to God after he joined his creator at King Faysal Hospital.

Msgr. Rubumbira who dedicated 60 years of his 89-year life time in the service died from the Kigali hospital as a result of lung cancer.

In 1962, as a section of Rwandans was forced into exile by fellow countrymen, Rubumbira found himself leaving the monastery, going to Uganda where many of his family members, friends and flock had fled to.

This is where he showcased his calling by helping, spiritually and materially, the refugees there who had left the comforts of their motherland to start their plight in exile.

When he left Rwanda in late 1961 fleeing for his life, he went and reported to the Diocese of Mbarara in Uganda, but in Rwanda he was considered a deserter from the church and the only possible move was to excommunicate him from priesthood.

Sources say he was literally isolated for about three years and forbidden from performing important church rituals such as saying mass, but he was patient.

While his fellow clergy lived luxurious lives parishes, the late Rubumbira opted to live in refugee camps, Nakivale and Orukinga, a.k.a Nyakivala and Nshungerezi, with his own people, people who needed him most.

"He was a great man, I will never forget the useful advice he gave me as a young and desolate refugee in 1962,” reads a condolence message by Isibo Rutimirwa, a former protégé of the priest who is now working with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Although as a catholic priest he never fathered any children biologically, many of the then Rwandan refugees in Uganda say Rubumbira was a father indeed for without him they would not be where they are today.

According to Ambassador Zephyr Mutanguha one of the people he mentored, who now heads CAMERWA, Rubumbira was a true man of God, ‘who restored hope in us when we were in great fear and hopelessness as refugees.

He used to remind us of our origins, which gave us purpose to live…He was a very positive and courageous man.’ Those who knew him in private say he was a true revolutionary.

Musoni, the current chairman of the National Youth Council who also participated in the liberation struggle had this to say: "I was in the junior seminary in Uganda where he had actually taken me, but one day he looked me into the eyes and said, ‘Musoni I think you are going to participate in our liberation of Rwanda’. It was then that I decided to join the liberation struggle.” 

"He used to give us food, provide our transport to school, many times in his own Volkswagen car, and gave us clothes,” said Pancreas Butamire who now works in the Office of the President.

The late Padiri as he was profoundly called intimated to the writer in 2005 that the most difficult and trying time of his priesthood was the time in the refugee camps.

"It was almost impossible to speak about Christ’s love and kindness when people had just witnessed the role of the Catholic Church in the demise that led them to the refugee camps in Uganda,” he had said.

But he patiently went on with his call of restoring hope to the hopeless love to those that needed it, mostly the refugees and wining souls to Christ, and he baptized very many children in these camps, not withstanding this difficult situation he was in.

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