The meeting between Pope Francis and Rwandan President Paul Kagame last week, in which the Pope acknowledged the church’s failures in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, has ended more than two decades of disagreement.

Pope Francis, the global head of the Roman Catholic Church, invited President Kagame to the Vatican for the meeting held on March 20, during which the pontiff admitted the church’s shortcomings during the genocide.

At the meeting, Pope Francis made statements that amounted to an apology — which Kigali had been demanding for 22 years — about the documented involvement of the Roman Catholic Church clergy and believers in massacres that took place in churches across the country.

READ: Pope, Kagame meet to quell tensions
“The Pope conveyed his profound sadness, and that of the Holy See and of the Church, for the Genocide against the Tutsi,” a statement released by the Vatican said.

“He expressed his solidarity with the victims and with those who continue to suffer the consequences of those tragic events and, evoking the gesture of Pope St John Paul II during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, he implored anew God’s forgiveness for the sins and failings of the Church and its members, among whom are priests, and religious men and women who succumbed to hatred and violence, betraying their own evangelical mission,” the statement added.

The Pope’s apology followed an earlier one by the Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda in November 2016, which the government rejected and termed “inadequate.”

The meeting at the Vatican seems to have buried the hatchet between the Rwandan government and the Roman Catholic Church, which escalated at the end of 2016 when President Kagame questioned why the Pope had not apologised for the thousands killed inside churches.

New chapter
President Kagame said the meeting with the Pontiff marked the beginning of a “new chapter in relations between Rwanda and Catholic Church/Holy See.”
“Being able to acknowledge/apologise for wrongs in circumstance/cases like this is an act of courage and moral high standing typical @Pontifex,” he tweeted.
“We will all be better for it,” he added.

An earlier statement released by Foreign Affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo indicated that the Vatican and Rwanda had come close to resolving the long-standing matter.

Ms Mushikiwabo said the meeting last week was indicative of a positive step towards the church and the Rwandan government mending fences.
“Today, genocide denial and trivialisation continue to flourish in certain groups within the Church, and genocide suspects have been shielded from justice within Catholic institutions,” the government statement read.

Kigali has also been pushing the Roman Catholic church to strip and excommunicate clergy found guilty of abetting killings, but the church says priests can only be discharged from service but they still retain their titles.

At least 41 per cent of Rwanda’s population follows the Roman Catholic faith.

Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, the head of the genocide survivor’s umbrella association Ibuka, said that Pope Francis’s acknowledgement of the Church’s failures in the Rwandan genocide marks an important historic milestone and will heal many hearts.

“Pope Francis has proved to be an icon of peace and reconciliation. Unlike his two predecessors, he understands the importance of the church accepting responsibility in the genocide. The next step now is to focus on fighting genocide denial and cleaning up the image of the church,” said Mr Dusingizemungu.