1. August 1994, Boston Globe
LIFE AMID DEATH: SAYING MASS IN AN
APOCALYPSE
Author: By Steve Fainaru, Globe Staff
KIBUMBA, Zaire -- Barefoot and filthy, many with
hacking, phlegmatic coughs, about 400 Rwandan refugees assembled on a small, windswept
plateau yesterday afternoon to celebrate 1 o'clock Mass in one of the most
hellish places on Earth.
The jarring drone of American bulldozers digging mass graves could be heard
in the distance as a Swiss priest, Rev. Peter Meienberg, read from a Swahili
Bible and parishioners sang African hymns during the 90-minute
service.
The refugees - grandmothers with children in tow, mothers nursing
babies,
elderly men propped up by wooden staffs and scores of small children
-
emerged from grass huts bearing rosary beads and Bibles after a woman with
a bullhorn informed them of the service.
The Mass was believed to be the first held for the refugees, who are
predominately Catholic. Their church was the gruesome Kibumba camp,
where nearly 15,000 people have died of cholera and dysentery. Decaying
bodies remain stacked on the side of the road.
Asked if it was difficult to maintain his faith while living in such
desperation,
Jean-Damascene Nkiranuye, who was a city official in the northwestern city
of Ruhengeri before he fled, said: "To put yourself in the hands of
God, that's
the only thing you can do in this situation."
The ceremony was all the more poignant for evoking the memory of the many
nuns and Jesuit priests and thousands of Catholic Tutsis who were killed in
churches by Hutu militiamen before they fled to northeastern Zaire.
Some observers believe that priests have been fearful of visiting the
Hutu-dominated camps. Father Meienberg, 65, said he was not afraid but
would have come to the camps out of "duty" even if he
were.
"It is a shame for the church," said Father Meienberg, who is based in
Nairobi. "There are so many Rwandan priests in Goma and they have not
been seen in the camps." Father Meienberg said he decided to visit the refugee sites after a dream four
nights ago that he likened to "Paul's vision to come to
Macedonia, in Greece."
He spent Friday and Saturday walking among the refugees, performing the
Sacrament of the Sick for the dead and dying. Yesterday, with help from the
Irish relief agency Goal, he said Mass at a wooden table covered with a white
cloth held down by chunks of hardened black lava.
While Claire Rutambuka, a refugee from Kigali who is volunteering with
Goal,
summoned people with a bullhorn from the back of a blue pickup, Father
Meienberg unpacked a Mass kit from a brown leather bag: a bronze
cross, a
red and black stole, an African-style chasuble, plastic bottles of wine and
Holy Water and Communion wafers.
He selected readings that signaled hope, he said, including Chapter 37 of the
Old Testament, in which the Prophet Ezekiel walks through the Valley of
Dried Bones and God brings the bones back to life, signaling the renewal of
the spirit, "which is Jesus," Father Meienberg said.
The churchgoers were disheveled after spending three weeks in
squalor. The
refugees eat small rations of beans and rice. Some walk about 25 kilometers
- about 12 hours up and back - to reach the nearest source of clean water.
Yesterday, they gathered under gray skies, with a chilling breeze whipping in
from the south and smoke from hundreds of thousands of wood fires choking
the air like smog. Children with dirt crusted in their hair laughed and
played;
an elderly man with stuffing coming out of the padded shoulders of his
sportcoat smiled and sang; a woman with thick eyeglasses wept.
Nearby, a man who appeared to be a Rwandan soldier looked on skeptically.
Older brothers held their younger brothers on their laps. In a canvas tent
about five yards away, a mother gave her eldest son a haircut while two
infants slept.
"We have a profound faith," said Joseph Kurazikubone, who directed rural
development programs in Kigali before he left Rwanda. "Here, our faith is
made stronger. We understand what is like to be persecuted."
The refugees formed a circle about 10 deep around Father
Meienberg,
occasionally clapping for the priest. As Father Meienberg read in Swahili, an
assistant translated the sermon into the Kinyarwanda, Rwanda's official
language.
During pauses, the refugees broke into soaring, joyous hymns. Their voices
and rhythmic clapping filled up the afternoon, drifting over the
horrific, smoky
landscape like a cleansing rain.
As the service wound down, several refugees offered prayers. One
woman, a
baby strapped to her back, asked God "for a new heart to love those who
have been hurting me." Another woman asked God for "guidance in this time
of distress." Finally, Father Meienberg gave Holy
Communion. Instead of filing before him,
the refugees waited while the priest moved in a circle, placing the wafers in
their cupped hands and blessing them. Afterward, Father Meienberg walked through the area and gave the
Sacrament of the Sick to hundreds of people, embracing sickly children and
caressing faces in a camp where people refuse to shake hands for fear of
passing along diseases.
As he moved among the huts in his flowing blue and white
cassock, stepping
over wood fires, people tugged at him to bless the sick in their
families. When
an orange sun began to disappear in the haze, he left, promising to return next
week.
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