{"id":26692,"date":"2016-07-07T06:32:36","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T06:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/kabgayi-diocese-released-invitations-for\/"},"modified":"2016-07-11T04:50:03","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T04:50:03","slug":"kabgayi-diocese-released-invitations-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/kabgayi-diocese-released-invitations-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Kabgayi diocese released invitations for celebrating convicted genocide priests, bishop confirms"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The Bishop of Kabgayi diocese, Smaragde Mbonyintege has confirmed his diocese released the list of priests whose silver jubilee was to be celebrated including convicts of genocide crimes. }<\/p>\n

The response follows the recent heated debate on social media circulating the invitation for the celebration of silver jubilee on 16th July 2016 of priests two of whom are genocide convicts. The act saw Ibuka declaring the act to be trivializing genocide as Bishop Mbonyintege denied to have released the invitation.<\/p>\n

The bishop has told IGIHE that the occasion of celebrating of silver jubilee for six priests was to be used as well to apologize on behalf of the two of priests convicted of genocide crimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe accept that these priests are genocide convicts and jailed. As a family that brought them up, we will apologize for their offenses that frustrated Christians,\u201c he said.<\/p>\n

{{Kabgayi diocese agrees to have released the invitation }}<\/p>\n

The invitation for jubilee celebration for genocide convicts was circulated at the end of June, 2016. The invitation raised outrage among members of the public and IBUKA, umbrella organization of genocide survivors.<\/p>\n

At the time, Bishop Mbonyintege denied to have released the circulated invitation but today he has confirmed it was published by his diocese.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know anything about the invitation. You asked me but I didn\u2019t really know what you were talking about. The invitation was released by our priest and I received explanations later. The wrong thing was that the invitation was not clearly explained since it created confusion,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

{{Was the priest who released the invitation mistaken?}}<\/p>\n

Talking on the release of the invitation Bishop Mbonyintege said; \u201cWe can\u2019t call it a mistake but the reality is explaining wrongly .We discussed and I told him that he created ambiguity. He had no bad intention for what he did,\u201d he said adding that the church can\u2019t forget two priests during the celebration as all belong to the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese priests committed offenses but they are ours.They are children of Catholic Church. Celebrating them demonstrating their crimes is not valorization but reminding them what they did. When a priest is convicted of such crime he is deprived of duties. A person ordained priest holds the title of priest forever,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

{{Protests }}<\/p>\n

IBUKA rejected the circulated invitation requesting to remove genocide priests from the list.<\/p>\n

\u201cIBUKA and genocide survivors would not be sunk into chagrin if they understood what is supposed to be done. When a person misconceives what he\/she hears you don\u2019t blame him rather provide explanations,\u201d said the bishop.<\/p>\n

Rukundo Emmanuel, a former Kabgayi priest, was convicted of genocide crimes by Arusha International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and sentenced for 23 years.<\/p>\n

Raping Tutsi women, conspiracy with Interahamwe to kill Tutsi and getting his fellow priest Mbuguje Alphonse killed are some of the crimes. <\/p>\n

Another Kabgayi priest ,Joseph Ndagijimana who was the chief priest of Byimana parish in 1994 was in 2008 convicted of genocide crimes by Byimana Gacaca court.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/en.igihe.com\/spip.php?page=mv2_article&id_article=26410<\/p>\n

http:\/\/en.igihe.com\/news\/ibuka-plans-court-action-over-celebrating.html<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The Bishop of Kabgayi diocese, Smaragde Mbonyintege has confirmed his diocese released the list of priests whose silver jubilee was to be celebrated including convicts of genocide crimes. } The response follows the recent heated debate on social media circulating the invitation for the celebration of silver jubilee on 16th July 2016 of priests two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[75],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-26692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","tag-homenews","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26692"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=26692"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=26692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}