{"id":83277,"date":"2016-11-28T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=83277"},"modified":"2016-11-23T11:41:34","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T11:41:34","slug":"rwandan-catholic-church-admits-role-in-genocide-apologizes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/11\/rwandan-catholic-church-admits-role-in-genocide-apologizes\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwandan Catholic Church Admits Role in Genocide, Apologizes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Church’s admission of guilt comes after years of denying its role in that and many other genocides around the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A bouquet of flowers tied with a ribbon showing the message “Genocide Never Again.”
Photo: Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

21 Nov 2016 – <\/em>Embarrassed for its leading role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which saw more than 800,000 people massacred, the Catholic Church in that country issued a statement apologizing on Sunday [20 Nov].<\/p>\n

According to the statement given by the Conference of Catholic Bishops, the church masterminded, aided and executed the genocide in which ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were exterminated by Hutu fanatics.<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/strong>Security Council Recognizes Role of Rwandan Genocide Tribunal<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, the admittance of responsibility and guilt came only years after Rwanda\u2019s local church had denied any responsibility, claiming officials had acted on their own. But that had never sat well with the many survivors and government officials who, for years, demanded the church accept its complicity in the massacre.<\/p>\n

Survivors have always held that there were thousands of victims who suffered at the hands of priests, clergymen and nuns. The Rwandan government has also said that even more victims died in the very churches where they had gone seeking refuge.<\/p>\n

\u201cForgive us for the crime of hate in the country to the extent of also hating our colleagues because of their ethnicity. We didn\u2019t show that we are one family but instead killed each other,\u201d the statement, read across the country\u2019s parishes, noted.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ezfg3Q_BdAk<\/p>\n

The news coincided with the formal end of what Pope Francis deemed a \u201cHoly Year of Mercy\u201d in order to encourage a \u201crevolution of tenderness,\u201d as he was quoted saying in an Italian magazine last year.<\/p>\n

However, while the news was welcomed by many as a positive development in Rwanda\u2019s troublesome path at reconciliation, it is imperative to note that the Catholic Church\u2019s role in genocides has not been limited to that country.<\/p>\n

In Latin and North America, the Catholic Church\u2019s so-called Doctrine of Discovery gave way for the brutal subjugation and extermination of Indigenous Peoples, either physically or culturally, in what\u2019s been known as one of the largest genocides in the world.<\/p>\n

Indeed, in Canada, a recent report by that country\u2019s Truth and Reconciliation Committee concluded that the Church, along with succeeding governments, engaged in \u201ccultural genocide\u201d of the Indigenous population.<\/p>\n

Among the most notorious findings was that more than 150,000 Indigenous children had been forcibly taken from their families and subjugated to violence, rape and even murder in order to \u201ctake the Indian out of the child\u201d through the Residential School system. The last such \u201cschool\u201d was closed there as recently as 1996.<\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/strong>Canada Indigenous Victims of ‘Cultural Genocide’ Speak in Landmark Case<\/a><\/p>\n

The Church has yet to offer an apology to the survivors of that genocide. Last year, however, Pope Francis, speaking at the World Meeting of the Popular Movements in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, admitted what had happened across the Americas was truly a barbaric crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI humbly ask your forgiveness, not only for the offenses committed by the Church herself, but also for the crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America,” he reportedly told the audience, filled with many Indigenous Peoples from across the continent. “Many grave sins were committed against the native people of America in the name of God.”<\/p>\n

WATCH: Historic World Meeting of Popular Movements organized by Vatican<\/strong><\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XlD6H-mRD3Q<\/p>\n

_________________________________________<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Survival International, teleSUR \/ fa-CM-egb<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 telesurtv.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Embarrassed for its leading role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which saw more than 800,000 people massacred, the Catholic Church in that country issued a statement apologizing on Sunday [20 Nov]. The Church’s admission of guilt comes after years of denying its role in that and many other genocides around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}