Tom Ndahiro
Africa-Press – Rwanda. It is a rare obscenity when a man of the cloth attempts to rinse the blood off the robes of genocidaires using nothing but ink and vocabulary. But this is precisely what Belgian Catholic priest Philippe de Dorlodot has done with his pamphlet-like epistle, chillingly titled: “Rwanda: The Error and the Horror – An Attempt to Understand…”
Written from Bukavu, barely across the border from the carnage in Rwanda, de Dorlodot’s message masquerades as reflection, but is in truth an intellectual euthanasia of moral responsibility, where genocide is dissolved into mere “error” and its perpetrators shrunk into tragic pawns of history. This is not theology. It is theocratic nihilism masquerading as analysis.
Clarity is key from the outset: this is no after-the-fact meditation. The climax of the Genocide Against the Tutsi began on April 7, 1994. By April 29—just 22 days into the slaughter—de Dorlodot had already composed and begun circulating this document to unnamed “friends” in Belgium.
While Tutsi families were still being hunted like animals, while rivers were clogged with bodies, while churches were still echoing with the last screams of children, this priest—stationed a few kilometers away—sat down to write not a condemnation of evil, but a justification for it.
This was not delayed reflection; it was real-time rationalization. At a moment when the Gospel demanded unambiguous moral witness, de Dorlodot offered apologia dressed in cassock.
He begins with fake empathy: “Shaken by the massacres, especially those of April 29 in Cyangugu, I am trying to understand how things could have come to this.” Cyangugu, a border region, had become one of the early epicenters of the Genocide Against the Tutsi.
Tutsis, young and old— were butchered in parishes, homes, and schools. That a priest stationed a few kilometers away, who had lived in the region for 24 years, could claim to have been merely “shaken” by such carnage reveals an insensitivity beyond pastoral negligence.
The phrase “trying to understand” is disarmingly modest, almost innocent. But what follows is anything but. It is not understanding he seeks; it is exoneration. And not of the victims, but of the very beasts who sliced children apart in churches.
De Dorlodot speaks of “civil war,” “massacres,” and “genocide” almost interchangeably, a lexical shuffle that should alarm any sentient reader. This wordplay is not confusion; it is calculated linguistic laundering. The genocide against the Tutsi becomes diluted within a semantic swamp, its specificity smothered by vagueness.
By merging the deliberate extermination of a people with generalized violence, he performs a verbal genocide against memory. As scholars such as Teun A. van Dijk explain in “Discourse and Power” (2008), discourse can be a tool of domination.
When language is used to blur moral categories, it can serve to erase the agency of perpetrators and recast them as victims of circumstance. Dorlodot’s writing is a textbook case of what van Dijk calls “strategic ambiguity,” designed not to illuminate but to absolve.
And then comes one of the most appalling tropes: “The roots of these tragic events go back in the history of this country, composed of two races: the Hutu, about 87%, are Bantu; the Tutsi, 12%, are Nilotic. Not to forget the Twa, 1%.” One doesn’t know whether to scream or sigh.
There it is again: the colonial fiction of “races” in Rwanda, a mythologized taxonomy as absurd as it is dangerous. Rwanda has no “races.”
Its people have always belonged to the same culture, spoken the same language, participated in the same clans, worshiped the same God, shared the same names, intermarried, danced to the same drums, celebrated the same rituals, and buried their dead with the same prayers.
Dorlodot’s idea that these are “profoundly different” races, is not the conclusion of anthropology, but the invention of colonial ideology—one specifically crafted by the Belgian administration and the Catholic missionaries, particularly the Congregation of White Fathers to which de Dorlodot himself belongs.
The same White Fathers that gave us Bishop André Perraudin, the godfather of PARMEHUTU—who penned the infamous 1959 pastoral letter that endorsed political Hutu-ism under the pretext of social justice. The same congregation that gave us Bishop Léon Classe, the architect of the colonial theory that turned socio-economic differences into biological myths.
These were not theological reflections; they were instruments of racial engineering. To preserve this poison in 1994, at the peak of its lethal flowering, is not ignorance. It is devotion. Not to God, but to the lie that has justified genocide.
His so-called historical analysis moves swiftly to 1958 and praises Archbishop Perraudin for championing “human rights” in a pastoral letter that in reality inflamed Hutu Power ideology. The Church, he claims, became “the spokesperson for the aspirations of the majority,” a sentence so grotesque in light of the genocide that it deserves a museum exhibit of shame.
For whom was the Church speaking, Father? For the mobs that sharpened machetes after Mass?
De Dorlodot reinforces colonial narratives by stating, “For centuries, under Tutsi monarchy, the Hutus were serfs, slaves. They were despised.” This narrative erases centuries of interwoven cultural, linguistic, and social coexistence. The so-called Tutsi monarchy included Hutus in governance, military, and ritual life.
The three groups he calls “races”—Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa—spoke the same language, and shared the same beliefs and customs. It was Belgian social engineering, not any ancient grievance, that rigidified social identities into something that could be mobilized for extermination.
The victim-blaming worsens with alarming candor: “The Tutsis made the Hutus feel their inferiority. The Hutus suffered many humiliations.” Here, again, is the logic of the abuser, the wife-beater who says, “She made me do it.”
It is an old trick of the intellectual fascist: pathologize the victim, romanticize the perpetrator. He wants us to believe that Hutu resentment was so deeply seated, so justified, that it erupted naturally in 1994. This is not historical context; it is genocidal apologia.
Scholars like Stanley Cohen in “States of Denial” (2001) have warned about “interpretive denial,” where atrocities are not denied outright but are explained away as the unfortunate result of history or grievance. De Dorlodot is not a denier. He is something more insidious: an explainer and defender.
Others, like Michael Billig in “Banal Nationalism” (1995), show how everyday rhetoric enables systemic cruelty. De Dorlodot’s tone of soft-spoken fatalism is a theological version of that banality—a tepid wash of detachment over crimes that should scream from the pulpit.
As the genocidal fire blazes, our White Father priest finds his moment to pull out the Arusha Peace Accords, framing them as the fatal “error” that led to the “horror.” The problem, he suggests, is that the Accords gave too much to the RPF he considers synonymous to Tutsi.
In fact, the Accords were conscientious attempts to create power-sharing. But de Dorlodot, much like the genocidal regime’s ideologues, saw them as the “Trojan horse” of Tutsi dominance.
He repeats the genocidal canard with familiarity saying: “For the Hutu majority, the Arusha Accords were unacceptable—they were seen as an open door to the Tutsis regaining power. For years, Hutus had said among themselves: “If the Tutsis try to take back power, we will massacre them all.”” This is the very language of Hutu-Power stalwarts— when they decided to sabotage the Peace Accords.
And what does he do with this monstrous utterance? He explains it, as if one among the genocidaires. Understands it with conviction. Frames it as an unfortunate but predictable reaction.
Here, we arrive at the core wickedness of de Dorlodot’s text: he seeks not to condemn evil, but to normalize it. He takes the rhetoric of extermination and packages it as folk wisdom.
His tone becomes a curious mix of paternalistic reflection and geopolitical gossip. Even when he acknowledges that “the Tutsi population is being exterminated: it is a genocide,” he immediately walks it back into explanation.
Dorlodot says, “It is true that militarily the RPF had the upper hand, and thus the resulting agreements were delicate. But giving 50-50 in the army was a mistake. The Westerners who forced these accords, just like the RPF who blindly pursued power without recognizing the Hutus’ determination to preserve their legitimate rights, share responsibility. They were mistaken.”
Genocide becomes the result of the RPF’s military superiority, of Western diplomatic pressure, of Hutu fear. A priest, who should cry out like Jeremiah, who should stand among the bones and cry justice, instead offers realpolitik justifications wrapped in pastoral platitudes.
And what are his theological worries? “Is there any moral authority left in the country? The wounded Catholic Church has been deeply affected by the killings—it is caught in the crossfire. Will Islam use this chaos to gain a foothold in Rwanda?” The genocide denialism in the word “crossfire” is outlandish.
His concern is not the mutilation of children. Not the extermination of a people in a so-called Christian republic. No, he is alarmed that Islam might gain a foothold in Rwanda. That is his anxiety! Not the smell of burning bodies, not the girls raped on altars, not the orphaned children trying to suckle milk from their dead mothers? Islam gaining ground.
That, to him, is the real crisis. And this from a priest whose collar should be drenched in tears, not smugness. His concern over religious competition amid genocide is perhaps the most revealing heresy of all.
The Vatican watched silently, as usual. No formal condemnation. No defrocking. No excommunication. De Dorlodot’s screed was circulated in Belgium, with not even a whisper from Rome.
The Church that once excommunicated liberation theologians for speaking of the poor now watched a genocide unfold without even retracting a priest’s sacrilegious text.
This is not a crisis of misunderstanding. It is a scandal of indifference. It is the moral rot of an institution that blessed fascism, that looked away from child rape, and now, shrugged at genocide.
Giorgio Agamben, in “Homo Sacer” (1998), described the modern state as one that decides who gets to be human and who becomes bare life. In Rwanda, the Church helped make that decision—by omission, by silence, and by letters like Dorlodot’s.
The problem with de Dorlodot is not merely his analysis; it is his soul. He does not believe in the radical equality of human beings. He does not believe that a Tutsi life is as sacred as his own. And he cloaks this unbelief in the respectable garb of “understanding.”
Jesus Christ never asked believers to understand evil; he asked them to resist it. He never said, “Forgive them, they know what they do.” He said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The genocidaires knew. De Dorlodot knew. And he still wrote this filth.
True or not, Christianity teaches that the Gospel is not a text of neutrality. It is a sword against injustice. It is a scandal to the empire. It is a rebuke of those who walk past the bleeding man on the road.
Clearly, de Dorlodot is no Good Samaritan. He is the Levite who looks upon the dying and asks, “Did he perhaps deserve it?” He does not cleanse wounds; he salts them with a mixture of hot pepper. He does not offer redemption; he offers worsening the pain and revisionism. He does not preach resurrection; he buries memory under a shroud of excuses.
And what of the Church today? The process to beatify figures like Archbishop Christophe Munzihirwa, who defended genocidaires is ongoing. Shall we see de Dorlodot next on the sainthood shortlist?
Perhaps his epitaph will read: “He tried to understand.” Or perhaps it should be truer: “He tried to explain away genocide.” And with him, a theology that bends not toward justice but toward those who carry machetes in one hand and hymnals in the other. At this rate, one might suggest Rome open a new dicastery: The Congregation for the Defense of the Indefensible.
For the sake of clarity, let this be stated plainly: when a priest uses his station to offer comfort not to the dying, but to their killers, he does not merely fail the Gospel—he mocks it. When the Vatican remains silent, it does not merely disappoint history—it desecrates its own altar.
De Dorlodot’s letter is not just theocratic cowardice; it is spiritual defacement. And the stain it leaves will not be washed away by incense and silence.
To the Holy See
One wonders—perhaps in horror, perhaps in pity—whether the Vatican has ever taken a moment, even in the stillness of a candlelit basilica, to ask itself what it truly means for Philippe de Dorlodot to still wear the collar.
Not figuratively, not symbolically—he literally still holds the title of priest, presumably still receives penitents— still offers benediction. He is still there, not suspended, not investigated, not silenced, but standing behind the confessional booth as if the Holy Spirit still whispers through him.
Imagine, if you can stomach it, a genocide survivor stepping into that booth, seeking absolution for some personal sin—say a moment of anger—and there, behind the screen, sits the man who justified mass murder as “an error,” who wrapped machete-wielding ideologues in pastoral sympathy.
And the world is meant to accept that the same hands which, in 1994, typed out a theological smokescreen for genocide are now somehow consecrated to dispense forgiveness and grace.
This is not simple oversight; it is a scandalous theater of sanctimony. It’s as if the Church handed the confessional keys to someone who once helped drive the getaway car in a massacre and said, “Now bless the wounded.”
But how wounded must one be to seek comfort in that booth? Picture a believer—say, a woman who survived the slaughter, whose family was hacked down while singing hymns—stepping inside to say, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”
And behind the screen, she hears the soft voice of the man who once wrote, calmly and without remorse, that those who slaughtered her people had reasons that deserved understanding.
De Dorlodot justified the killing of people simply because of the bodies they were born into—the shape of their noses, the names they bore, the blood in their veins. Or simply, those who carried identity cards inscribed TUTSI. And now, this man, this ordained functionary of absolution, is her conduit to God?
What theology is this? What perverted ecclesiology permits a man to rationalize the slaughter of God’s children and yet still be permitted to utter, “Go in peace, your sins are forgiven”? Does the Church no longer believe in blasphemy, or has it simply franchised it?
The Genesis account proclaims that every human being is created in imago Dei—in the image of God. So what does it mean when a priest not only fails to defend that image but helps explain why its erasure was understandable? It is not just heresy. It is theological vandalism.
To murder someone for who they are—for the body God gave them, for the ancestry He ordained—is to spit on creation itself. It is not just a crime against humanity; it is a blasphemy. It is impiety, a desecration of the divine order.
De Dorlodot did not simply fail the moral test; he used a pulpit to support the annulment of God’s handiwork. His writings are not a lapse. They are a liturgical betrayal.
Which raises an even more chilling question: why would someone confess, “I committed adultery,” to a man who endorsed the mass rapes of Tutsi women in churches and schools? Why would one whisper shame over a stolen coin to someone who gave moral cover to the theft of lives?
Why would anyone kneel before a Church that, in its institutional silence, seemed more perturbed by the prospect of Islam’s “foothold” in Rwanda than the severed limbs of a million murdered souls?
These are not rhetorical barbs hurled in anger. They are the grief-stricken, genuine reflections of genocide survivors—people who still believe in God, yet look upon His appointed ministers and see complicity wrapped in cassocks.
Survivors who were once baptized by priests, and whose families were later betrayed by those same priests turning them over to militias. They do not ask for miracles. They ask for moral clarity. They want to know: can a man who helped bless the fire still call himself a shepherd?
And above all, they ask: where is the confession of the Church itself? If Dorlodot can still distribute sacraments, who absolves the Church for commissioning him in the first place?
Until the Vatican musters the courage to wrestle with these questions—not with press releases, but with repentance—its silence remains not just deafening. It is damning.
Just imagine a man who saw the extermination of the Tutsi not as rebellion against God, but as a reaction of the misunderstood majority. Is this not a sacrilege of the highest order? This is not merely hypocrisy—it is theologically laughable.
So why, then, is de Dorlodot still seen as a vessel of grace? Why is the Church comfortable with a man who effectively canonized the killers? Why should any soul whisper mea culpa to someone who blessed mass rape in the name of “representing the majority”?
These are not questions concocted by activists or atheists. These are the haunted, painful questions asked by genocide survivors—those who still believe in God, but wonder whether His Church does.
And perhaps most damningly, the Church that claims to guard sacred mysteries has become suspiciously silent when the mystery is how someone like de Dorlodot still dares to raise a chalice.
If sacraments are to mean anything, if confession is to heal anything, the Church must first confess its own complicity. Until then, that booth is not a sacred space. It is an accomplice’s closet.
This long op-ed is not a call to understand Philippe de Dorlodot. It is a call to excommunicate him—from memory, from moral discourse, from history. However, let his words be taught, yes—in seminaries, in ethics classes, in genocide studies programs—as examples of how evil often comes not with a sword but with a sermon.
Let them be inscribed in moral curricula, under the chapter: “When theology lost its God.” And let the Vatican be reminded: silence in the face of such heresy is not neutrality. It is complicity, blessed in Latin.
I suppose there is no room in Christ’s church for those who see genocide as policy error. And, no sanctuary for those who weep for Islam gaining ground but not for babies smashed against church walls. No forgiveness without truth. No theology without justice. No sacrament without solidarity.
And the truth is this: Philippe de Dorlodot did not misunderstand the genocide. He did not misread the horror. He merely chose the side of those who held the machetes. With his pen, he sharpened them. With his clerical collar, he dignified them. And with his Church behind him, he thought no one would call him out. Today, we survivors do.
Source: The New Times
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