Rwandan President Paul Kagame has issued a warning of potentially taking action against Catholic believers who make pilgrimages to a worldwide sacred site in his country, asserting that they are “revering destitution.”
Each year, a multitude of individuals, often journeying for numerous days on foot, make their way to Kibeho, a southern Rwandan town where it is believed that the Virgin Mary appeared to three schoolgirls over forty years ago.
However, Kagame expressed his criticism towards the pilgrims following a Catholic mass attended by over 20,000 people in the hillside town on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has threatened to round up Catholic faithful who visit a global pilgrimage site in his country, accusing them of “worshipping poverty”.
In an address to a youth conference on Wednesday, he described the pilgrimage to Kibeho, where the three teenagers said the mother of Christ appeared to them in November 1981, as “horrible”.
“I thought that when you pray, you are praying for what can help improve your lives, praying to get rich and get out of poverty,” he said.
“No one must worship poverty. Do not ever do that again… If I ever hear about this again, that people travelled to go and worship poverty, I will bring trucks and round them up and imprison them, and only release them when the poverty mentality has left them,” said Kagame, himself a Catholic.
It is not clear what prompted the outburst by Rwanda’s iron-fisted ruler and the Catholic Church in the country has not yet made any public comment.
The 1981 event was authenticated by the Vatican in 2001 and the site has become a popular destination for Catholic pilgrims from all over the world, many hoping for miracles or cures for illness.
Local media reported earlier this month that the Catholic Church is seeking funding of Rwf3.5 billion ($3 million) to expand Kibeho.
Almost all Rwandans are Christians, with Catholics making up roughly half the population.