Rwandan genocide: churches need to undertake collective confession
Free photos available, see below
Cf. Press Update PU-04-19 of 14 April 2004
Cf Press Update PU-04-18 of 8 April 2004
The need for churches to confess their collective failure in addressing the Rwandan genocide when it erupted ten years ago is part of the message that the general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, is bringing to Rwanda today.
"We must confess that we failed to address the genocide when it took place," Kobia said before leaving Kenya for Rwanda today. "We could have used the moral authority of the church and spoken out strongly, but we did not," he stated.
Noting that 95% of Rwandans are Christians, the fact that the genocide "was carried out by them" raises a critical question: "Is our Christianity deep enough, or is it just skin deep in Africa?" Kobia asked.
Another question Africa will have to answer, he went on, is "about ethnicity. On one hand, our ethnic identity brings riches of diversity. But should that identity also be the source of our conflicts?"
Arriving today in Kigali, Kobia begins the second leg (16-18 April) of his first visit to Africa as WCC general secretary. The first leg of the visit took Kobia to Kenya (8-15 April), where he met the country's president, Mwai Kibaki, at the State house in Nairobi on 14 April.
Encouraging the churches to provide directions on how to move forward on some of the difficult issues for his country, President Kibaki said that church and state were complementary in endeavours in areas like socio-economic development.
While hailing the president's peace initiatives in the region, and especially in Somalia and Sudan, Kobia expressed hope that these efforts could produce concrete peace agreements in the two countries.
Kibaki also commended the churches for their efforts to sensitize people on the need to adopt behaviour that would halt the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Responding to that, Kobia assured him that churches will continue to work ecumenically in prevention and eradication of HIV/AIDS.
Later the same day, the WCC general secretary visited the headquarters of the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), where he met AACC president Rev. Nyansako ni-Nku and general secretary Rev. Dr H. Mvume Dandala.
Referring to a stone from Lake Turkana in northern Kenya, where palaeontologists believe human life began, Kobia spoke of Africa as the birthplace of the humanity. The stone is conserved at AACC headquarters in Nairobi.
Earlier, during the meeting with the state president, Kobia had stressed the very special place of Africa in the life and work of the WCC. "Our historic contribution goes way back to the struggles against apartheid in South Africa to the most recent peace initiatives in Liberia and Sudan."
At a thanksgiving worship held the same day at All Saints Cathedral in Nairobi, representatives of African churches and ecumenical organizations expressed their joy and satisfaction at the election of "our brother and the son of this land" as the first African general secretary of the WCC.
During the service, the church and ecumenical representatives commended Kobia and his wife Ruth to "serve the cause of life in fullness and to promote justice and truth in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ". They prayed to God to give the new WCC general secretary "continuing guidance and inspiration," and to use him "to promote unity of the church and to strengthen the oneness of the ecumenical movement".
Originally expected to be part of the WCC delegation visiting Kenya and Rwanda, the WCC central committee moderator, His Holiness Catholicos Aram I, was finally unable to join the delegation.
Free high-resolution photos of the visit available at:
www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/press_corner/kenya-rwanda-visit.html
