The Church should reprimand clergy implicated in Genocide

Editor, RE: “Christians should use Easter to repent and make amends” (The New Times, April 16). Which is exactly why we should judge the genuineness of the Popes recent expressions of remorse regarding his Churchs failures in Rwanda that led inexorably to the Genocide against the Tutsi to the practical actions the Church (a highly disciplined hierarchical organization with an iron-hand command and control structure) now takes on the many of its clergy who were actively complicit in the Genocide and whom the Church subsequently ex-filtrated from the country, assigned them to various dioceses and parishes (often in Europe and under different names) and who continue to carry out their ministries despite blood-dripping fingers. If such priests as Wenceslas Munyeshyaka in Gissors, Normandy, France are allowed to continue to act as priests as if there are no serious credible suspicions of genocidal crimes hanging over them, and that the Church persists in doing everything in its power to shield them as it has done since 1994, then we shall be entitled to doubt the sincerity of those expressions of remorse. The ball is truly in the Churchs court to convince those of us who have learned from painful experience to doubt that the institution is ever driven by the teachings of the one who taught to love ones neighbor as we love ourselves. Needless to say, nothing would make me happier than for my cynicism to be proved to be entirely groundless by seeing the Church take concrete action against those amongst its clergy suspected of active involvement in the genocide. Mwene Kalinda

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The Church should reprimand clergy implicated in Genocide