The Nyarubuye Church slaughter

This article about the “slaughter” in Nyarubuye really enlightened me to the events of one of the more major group murders in Rwanda. It is a firsthand account of the carnage and the emotion in the author’s tone in the writing is clear. However, what grabbed me the most about this article was the description of the building itself. The author describes the outside of the church as follows: “A poster of Pope John Paul II is tacked on the main door and above it is a large white statue of Jesus, his arms beckoning.” The reporter then follows this statement with, “Inside are the remains of victims of a mass slaughter carried out by Government-trained militiamen in mid-April.” As a practicing Christian, this imagery shocks me. Although the church has been constantly used as a reason for violence, it still makes me uncomfortable whenever the image of my savior is used as one of violence and killing. Ever since seeing “The Ghosts of Rwanda,” This one event at the Catholic Church has always been one of the most difficult for me to take when researching the genocide in Rwanda. It’s shocking how those arms of the statue of Jesus should be beckoning for those people to be saved, and yet they were not saved. They were slaughtered.