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Kigali, Rwanda, Apr 25, 2019 / 11:47 am (CNA).- The Catholic bishops of Rwanda have apologized for calling for the release of old and ill prisoners convicted for crimes committed during the country’s 1994 genocide.

“We wrote to Christians, encouraging them to continue promoting unity and reconciliation, while also seeking forgiveness,” the bishops said in an April 7 statement signed by Bishop Phillippe Rukamba of Butare, the president of the Rwandan bishops’ conference.

“This letter caused a lot of hurt, especially for what we requested on behalf of the elderly and sickest who are still in prison for the crime of genocide. We are saddened it offended people – this was not what we intended,” the bishops said.

The bishops had issued a pastoral letter March 25 commemorating the victims of the genocide, urging reconciliation and forgiveness in the face of violence, but including a sentence exhorting those responsible for older or sick perpetrators to “examine whether their sentences can be reduced.”

Twenty-five years ago this month, ethnic tensions in Rwanda boiled over as members of the Hutu ethnic majority took up machetes and turned on their minority Tutsi neighbors, friends, and colleagues, killing them based on the color of their skin and the width of their nose.

In the 100-day genocide that followed, it is estimated that 1 million people were slaughtered.

Rwandans marked the anniversary of the tragedy April 7 at the Genocide Memorial Center in the capital city of Kigali. President Paul Kagame and leaders from Africa and the European Union were in attendance, the Catholic Information Service for Africa reported.

The bishops apologized for issuing the pastoral letter during the period of commemoration.

“After this tragedy of genocide against the Tutsis, the light of the Lord’s resurrection was not quenched –asking and giving forgiveness can become a means of building a tomorrow for everyone,” the bishops said.

In the 1994 genocide, clergy members were included in the ranks of both perpetrators and victims. In some cases, Hutu priests, bishops. and religious helped to hide and protect Tutsis. In other cases, they took up arms against them, ushering them into church buildings with false promises of security and then trapping and betraying them, facilitating their massacre.

The Church has since played a large role in helping to promote reconciliation and forgiveness. More than half of Rwanda’s population is Catholic.

The country’s bishops in November 2016 issued an official apology for Christians’ role in the genocide.

“We apologize for all the wrongs the Church committed. We apologize on behalf of all Christians for all forms of wrongs we committed. We regret that church members violated (their) oath of allegiance to God’s commandments,” they wrote.

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Asmara, Eritrea, Jul 24, 2019 / 10:37 am (CNA).- The Eritrean government’s recent closure of all Catholic-run health clinics in the country will have devastating effects for the people of the country, warned the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need.

Sources in the country told the agency that the situation is dire and denounced the international indifference and lack of response.

“They are preventing us from offering what little we could give, in places where no one cares for the population, not even the state,” a source told Aid to the Church in Need, according to Vatican News.

“What will the people do?”

Last month, military forces arrived at the Church’s 22 health care clinics, telling patients to return to their homes, and subsequently guarding the buildings.

The government justified its seizures of the property under a 1995 decree restricting social and welfare projects to the state. The decree has been used intermittently since then to seize or close ecclesial services.

According to the BBC, analysts believe the recent seizures were retaliatory, after the Church in April called for reforms to reduce emigration. The bishops had also called for national reconciliation.

When the government interrupts the work of the Church, it is the people who suffer, Aid to the Church in Need said.

The agency argued that government-run hospitals lack the equipment and resources to take over the operations of the closed Church-run facilities, particularly in rural areas, Vatican News reported.

The agency also noted that the Catholic health care centers served people of all faiths. Some 95% of Eritreans are non-Catholic.

The Eritrean bishops have objected to the seizure of the clinics, stressing that the Church’s social services are not an act of opposition to the government.

“Any measure that prevents us from fulfilling … the obligations that come to us from the supreme commandment of brotherly love is and remains a violation of the fundamental right of religious freedom,” the bishops said in a statement.

Eritrea is a one-party state whose human rights record has frequently been deplored. Government seizure of Church property in the country is not new.

In July 2018, an Eritrean Catholic priest helping immigrants and refugees in Italy told EWTN that authorities had recently shut down eight free Catholic-run medical clinics. He said authorities claimed the clinics were unnecessary because of the presence of state clinics.

Christian and Muslim schools have also been closed under the 1995 decree designating the state as sole provider of social services, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2019 annual report.

Eritrea has been designated a Country of Particular Concern since 2004 for its religious freedom abuses by the US Department of State.

Many Eritreans, especially youth, emigrate due to a military conscription or a lack of opportunities, freedom, education, and health care.

A July 2018 peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which ended a conflict over their mutual border, led to an open border which has allowed for easier emigration.

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Rome Newsroom, May 15, 2020 / 07:10 am (CNA).- The number of people in need of help with basic necessities in Iraq, already in the millions, is expected to rise greatly in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Catholic priest working in … […]