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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Disintegration of the Catholic Church of Rwanda: A Study of the Fragmentation of Political and Religious Authority
Author:Hoyweghen, Saskia VanISNI
Year:1996
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society
Volume:95
Issue:380
Period:July
Pages:379-401
Language:English
Geographic term:Rwanda
Subjects:Catholic Church
Church and State
Religion and Witchcraft
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/723573
Abstract:With the collapse of the nation-State in Rwanda in 1994, the Catholic Church also disintegrated. Today, the Church's hierarchy is physically divided between a church in exile in the refugee camps and a beheaded, confused episcopacy within the country. This paper, which is based on interviews conducted in Rwanda in June, July and August 1995, analyses the fragmentation of religious authority in Rwanda in connection with the collapse of the State. It argues that both the State and the Church have been used by indigenous groups as channels of power, prestige and wealth. Ethnic divisions promoted by the Belgian colonial administration have been institutionalized within the Church since the revolution of 1959. The Church has been ruled by a Hutu episcopacy, supportive of the subsequent regimes, but relying mainly on a Tutsi clergy. While the Church played a leading role in the social revolution of 1959, since then it has never spoken out on social issues. The institutional survival of the Church has been mortgaged. Within Rwanda a traumatized episcopacy publicly expresses its guilt and claims to start afresh by implementing Vatican II. However, the future of the Church will depend largely on the outcome of the current political crisis. Notes, ref.
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