{"id":2185,"date":"2016-11-24T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-11-24T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/?p=2185"},"modified":"2016-11-24T01:27:04","modified_gmt":"2016-11-24T06:27:04","slug":"rwanda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/2016\/11\/rwanda\/","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Church admits responsibility for genocide in Rwanda"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;text-align: justify\"><a href=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/2016\/11\/24\/rwanda\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/files\/2016\/11\/Rwanda.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In April 1994, a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rwandan_genocide\">three-month killing spree<\/a> began in Rwanda, in which Hutu members <strong>killed about 800,000 people<\/strong> in an attempt to destroy the Tutsi &#8216;rival&#8217; ethnic group; they also killed Hutus who were not willing to take part in the genocide. Religion played a key role, as <strong>priests, nuns and bishops participated in the massacre<\/strong> and incited it from their pulpits, radio stations of the Church and newspapers \u2014 when the persecuted took refuge in churches, the god messengers betrayed their trust, alerting the Hutus&#8217; death squads. Christian love at its finest.<\/p>\n<p>Now, 22 years later, it seems that the <a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2016\/11\/21\/africa\/rwanda-catholic-church-apology\/\">Catholic Church in Rwanda admitted its responsibility in the genocide<\/a> and apologized:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The <strong>Catholic Church in Rwanda has apologized for its members&#8217; role in the genocide that saw hundreds of thousands of Rwandans killed<\/strong> in 1994.<\/p>\n<p>Rwandan bishops <strong>asked for &#8220;forgiveness for sins of hatred and disagreement that happened in the country to the point of hating our own countrymen because of their origin<\/strong>,&#8221; in a statement read after mass in parishes across the country Sunday<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It is a good step in the right direction, although I do not think it is enough \u2014 apologizing does not make much sense if there is no real repentance (what Catholics call &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Contrition\">contrition<\/a>&#8220;), and they could well show it, not only asking for forgiveness, but by confessing their crimes in a court of law, and accepting the sentence.<\/p>\n<p>And since we are making suggestions, it wouldn&#8217;t be too bad for the Church to open its coffers and, for a change, <strong><em>economically<\/em> repair some of the damage they have done<\/strong>, putting their money where their mouth is. Because talk is cheap.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, it is worth remembering that the list of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rk5_Uxe5bZY\">things the Church could apologize for<\/a> remains devilishly long. They have a lot of work ahead of them.<\/p>\n<p>(via <b>Jorge Gonz\u00e1lez<\/b> | image: <b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/configmanager\/4474577838\">configmanager<\/a><\/b>)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Catholic priests, nuns and bishops participated in the genocide in Rwanda, and incited it from their pulpits \u2014 they admit it 22 years later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":2184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[40,28,410,35,409],"class_list":["post-2185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism","tag-catholic-church","tag-christianity","tag-genocide","tag-history","tag-rwanda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/avant-garde\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}