Genocidal priest expelled from priesthood after fathering a child

Pope expels controversial Rwandan priest from France

Rwandan priest Wenceslaus Munyeshyaka was expelled from the clerical state by Pope Francis after being convicted of genocide. Munyeshyaka's appeal against his conviction was denied by a French court in March, prompting the Vatican's announcement, according to French media.

In a press release issued on Monday 2 May, Mgr Christian Nourrichard, bishop of the diocese where the priest currently resided, announced that the Pope had removed him from the clerical state by decree on 23 March.

From now on, Father Munyeshyaka is "dispensed from all obligations deriving from sacred ordination, automatically loses all rights proper to the clerical state, is excluded from the exercise of the sacred ministry and may not function as a lector or acolyte or distribute communion anywhere. He must avoid places where his former state is known. A supreme and final ruling that is not subject to any appeal and has "immediate effect", the statement said.

Munyeshyaka was accused of facilitating the massacre of Tutsi refugees in his Kigali parish during the 1994 Tutsi genocide. He fled Rwanda after the genocide and was granted asylum in France. However, he was arrested in 1995 and charged with complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity.

He is accused of masterminding the genocide in various parts of Kigali, in particular the killings at the Saint Famille Catholic church where he was a priest in 1994. Wenceslao Munyeshyaka was one of the priests who signed a letter to John Paul II denying the Tutsi genocide and portraying the Hutus as the main victims of the massacres.

However, the letter does not explain why Pope Francis decided to remove Munyeshyaka from the clergy.

Munyeshyaka, a former Vicar of Sainte Famille, is accused of participating in massacres across the capital and of handing Tutsi women who sought refuge in his church to militiamen to be raped. Munyeshyaka is well known for being the priest who moved around with a gun and military equipment during the Genocide and worked closely with some of the key masterminds of the Genocide, including former Kigali mayor Col Tharcisse Renzaho, among others.

The Rwandan priest remained in France, where he continued to serve as a priest in several parishes until Nourrichard suspended him in 2021 after learning that he had a child from an affair who was born in 2010.

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