It Takes A Pope

Sometimes it takes a pope to say, “I’m sorry.”  That is the case with the Rwandan genocide of 1994.  Some Roman Catholic priests took part in the murder of Tutsis and moderate Hutus during an ethnic uprising that claimed 800,000 lives in three months.  It was a savage bloodletting for which the bishops of the country have already apologized, but that wasn’t enough.  Pope Francis has asked the Rwandan president for forgiveness for the actions of church members and from a PR perspective that is the least he can do.  There was no justification for the violence and even if there were a bonafide reason, a Catholic priest should have had no part in it.  These were men who had forgotten their position as religious.  The Roman Catholic Church will take many years to live down the slaughter and well it should even though it was the actions of a few rather than the majority of priests who killed Rwandan citizens.  Even one priest gone rogue was one too many.