Conclusion

Summary

The genocide did not only shatter the standing of the churches, which had witnessed, powerless, the desecration of their sanctuaries and the decimation of their clergy. It shattered the image of a country dedicated to the Christian faith. Practising Christians, who knew that killing was against God's commandment, proved incapable of resisting the wave of murder that submersed Rwanda. They hunted the Tutsi to death or denounced them to the Interahamwe. It is true that not all believers participated in the genocide and that a significant number of them resisted the killers, sheltered Tutsi refugees and faced death, in some cases, to protect people in danger. On balance, however, the genocide was a terrible indictment for the churches, who had been considered exemplary agents of evangelisation for decades. Never had Christians murdered so many fellow believers in places of worship. Particularly problematic was the absence of a vigorous denunciation of the genocide against the Tutsi on the part of the church leaders. Rwanda had no Jules Saliège, who condemned the deportation of the Jews in a famous pastoral letter, and no Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who took an uncompromising position against the Nazi regime and was executed for having taken part in a conspiracy against Hitler. ‘We used to think’, a survivor told Anne Kubai, ‘that the priests and nuns were without sin, that they played the role of God and that the church was a sacred place. But now many people realised that they are like everyone else.’

This book has examined how the Rwandan churches handled the memory of the genocide against the Tutsi. Like any other sector of society, they have been the site of a conflict of memory. Faced with hard questions because of their historical connection with the Rwandan Social Revolution and the Habyarimana regime, whose actions and inactions had prepared the way for the genocide, they struggled to accept responsibility for their part in the tragedy.

Astoundingly, considering that the genocide reached the highest degree of horror, its true nature was never universally accepted. When it was unfolding, the perpetrators and the authorities who coordinated their ‘work’ pretended to wage a ‘war’ against invaders and their ‘accomplices’, women and children included.