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January 25, 2009

I had a nightmare last night. The intensity of this particular dream may be attributable to the malarone, an anti malaria medication. But I've had this nightmare many times since I first visited Rwanda. I won't trouble you with the details. Suffice to say they are horrific. In the dream I try and try -different tactics, different dreams) but always, of course, I fail to stop the killing. I yell for my country and they do not come, I yell for the UN and they do not come. I yell in every language I know at every nation I ever heard of and then I just scream. I scream for God and I scream at the Pope because despite everything, in the end I am a Catholic. And most of the Rwandans are Catholics, too- both Hutu and Tutsi- the victims and the killers. And I think there is one man who might have stopped the genocide.

If the Pope had come to Kigali, gone on the (hate) airwaves, the radio, the TV, walked the blood drenched streets, met with the perpetrators and the orchestrators of the genocide and demanded they lay down their machetes or damn their immortal souls, there is a good chance the Pope could have stopped the Rwandan genocide that left a million people dead.

And why is it that in the ensuing 15 years, no Pope has visited Rwanda to comfort that anguished flock? Even today, as those same Hutus and Tutsis war in neighboring Congo, murdering, raping, plundering-destroying the lives of millions, there is one man who might make a difference. But the Pope will not go to Congo. Or Somalia, or Darfur.
The Darfuris are not Catholic but they are human beings. They are God's children.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has visited Darfur. I don't even know which church he is the Archbishop of, yet I know that he is one of the few, constant, courageous moral voices in this world. Thank you Desmond Tutu.

However I might try to extract myself, I am rooted in Catholicism. So, when my yelling becomes a scream, I invariably turn to the God of my childhood. I believe again - for the duration of the scream. And then, I am again beyond disappointed, faithless. I am furious because my God, as represented by my church, again has failed to step up and do the right thing.
 
 
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