Pope Francis
has asked Rwandan President Paul Kagame for forgiveness for the "sins and
failings" of the Catholic Church during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
During a
meeting with Kagame Monday at the Vatican, the Pope expressed "solidarity
with the victims and with those who continue to suffer the consequences of
those tragic events," according to a statement from the Vatican.
Pope Francis
acknowledged that priests, nuns and members of the Catholic church had
succumbed to hatred and violence in Rwanda, "betraying their own
evangelical mission," the Vatican said.
In a
statement read after mass in parishes across the country, Rwandan bishops asked
for "forgiveness for sins of hatred and disagreement that happened in the
country to the point of hating our own countrymen because of their
origin,"
In 1994,
Hutu extremists in Rwanda targeted minority ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in
a three-month killing spree that left an estimated 800,000 people dead.
Hutu
attackers burned down churches with hundreds or thousands of Tutsis inside. The
violence was triggered by the death of President Juvénal Habyarimana, an ethnic
Hutu, in a plane crash on April 6, 1994.
Four
Catholic priests were indicted by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda for their role in the genocide in 2001.
Among them
was Rwandan Catholic Priest Athanse Seromba, who was sentenced to life
imprisonment for actively participating in the massacre of around 2,000 Tutsis
who sought protection in his church.
The United
Nations has criticized the Catholic Church in the past for its failure to
apologize for its complicity in the killings.
Groups such
as African Rights, who have researched the mass slaughter, say there is
"overwhelming evidence that church leaders maintained their silence in the
face of genocide," according to a 1998 report.
They argue
that the small number of indictments do not accurately represent the church's
role in the genocide
Credit: Stephanie Busari, CNN
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