Rwanda demands apology from Vatican over genocide
Pope Francis (center) leads a canonisation mass on October 16, 2016 at St Peter's square in Vatican. Rwanda is demanding an apology from the Vatican. PHOTO | AFP
What you need to know:
- Pope Francis last year made a surprise public apology for recent scandals.
KIGALI
The Government of Rwanda has demanded an apology from the Vatican for the role played by members of the Catholic Church in the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, according a government statement released on Wednesday.
The demand comes days after Rwanda’s nine Catholic bishops apologised — in a general manner — for some of the acts committed by some members of the Catholic Church during the genocide which claimed the lives of about one million people.
"Given the scale of the crimes, there is ample justification for an apology from the Vatican, as has occurred repeatedly with other cases of lesser magnitude,” it said in the statement.
Pope Francis last year made a surprise public apology for recent scandals “either in Rome or in the Vatican” during his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square, but did not specify which scandals.
In the Wednesday statement meanwhile, Rwanda government said while the bishops step is welcome, as individual expressions of remorse, its profound inadequacy only serves to highlight how far the Catholic Church still remains from a full and honest reckoning with its moral and legal responsibilities.”
“The bishops appear to take the extraordinary step of exonerating the Catholic Church as a whole for any culpability in connection with the genocide."
