Kinshasa, 16 July, 2020 / 8:02 pm (ACI Africa).
The Clergy of the Archdiocese of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have, in a collective statement, expressed their solidarity to their Local Ordinary, Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo after his message during the country’s Independence Day anniversary drew criticism from a section of religious leaders.
In their July 14 statement addressed to Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo, the Clergy of the Archdiocese in DR Congo’s capital, Kinshasa say they learned “with astonishment and bitterness that the homily you delivered during the Mass celebrated on Tuesday, June 30, 2020, on the occasion of 60 years of the accession of our country to national and international sovereignty, aroused in the national media a vast campaign of vilification against your person.”
“Such fury, which is unjustified, is unacceptable. We condemn it with vigor and firmness, as it is an expression not only of bad faith but also, and above all, of the lack of a democratic culture,” members of the Assembly of the Clergy of Kinshasa (ACKIN) add.
In his homily during the June 30 Eucharistic celebration organized for the DRC’s independence diamond jubilee, Cardinal Ambongo made known his thoughts about the unity government saying, “The ruling coalition has lost its purpose. Instead of working together around a common program of governance, the members of the coalition no longer trust each other. They have developed a dangerous relationship of rivalry that risks dragging the whole country into chaos.”
Terming Cardinal Ambongo’s message “hate speech,” religious leaders drawn from some six denominations in DR Congo expressed, in a joint statement, their criticism of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Kinshasa.
