Rwanda - Day of Reconciliation in St John Bosco Parish in Rango
Rango, Rwanda - January 2025 - A Day of Reconciliation was celebrated on Sunday 19 January in St John Bosco Parish in Rango. This day was organised by the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Butare in cooperation with the Salesian parish of Rango. After five months of formation and spiritual preparation, eighty people who committed genocide, and other genocide-related sins, against the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, asked forgiveness from twenty-six survivors. They asked forgiveness from God, the Church and all God's people, repeating the promises of the day of baptism, and each of them received from the hands of the bishop, a lighted candle. These forgiveness ceremonies brought relief to broken hearts and healed some of the wounds of the genocide. Fr Gabriel Ngendakuriyo, Superior of the Africa Great Lakes Vice-Province (AGL), participated in these ceremonies. The Mass was presided over by Bishop Jean Bosco Ntagungira, Bishop of Butare.