Pope Francis has dismissed 64-year-old Rwandan minister Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, who had served in northern France for nearly 30 years.
The bishop of Évreux issued a statement, which was circulated on the internet, in which he said that Munyeshyaka was “barred” from continuing to exercise the priesthood “in any other place” and “automatically lost his spiritual rights”.
The authenticity of the statement was confirmed to the BBC by the Diocese of Evreux, and it was revealed that the decision was based on a papal bull from March.
Munyeshyaka, who fled to France after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, has not commented on the decision.
In December 2021, he was suspended from his diocese after it was revealed he legally admitted fathering a 10-year-old child.
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Munyeshyaka was ordained in 1992 in Rwanda, where he was accused of involvement in the murder of hundreds of Tutsi who fled to his church in the capital Kigali during the genocide. French courts have acquitted him of genocide charges.
On March 13, 2013, Pope Francis became the first Latin American pope and the first to be proclaimed St. Francis of Assisi.
These were some of the first signs of the change he wanted to bring about in the Roman Catholic Church.
His visit to Iraq and his comments on the climate crisis and migration made headlines.
In an ever-changing world where the center of gravity of global Catholicism is shifting away from Europe, Francis has chosen to adapt. He launched several reforms, some related to the redistribution of power according to this Vatican.
“During these past 10 years, we have witnessed the largest redistribution of power between cities, countries and continents in the history of contemporary church,” Piero Schiavazzi, Vatican Geopolitics Professor at the Link University, Rome, said.
