Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, an influential founding member of Pope Francis’s Council of Cardinals, died yesterday in Versailles near Paris at 81 after being rushed there for treatment in a critical condition.
The former archbishop of Kinshasa fought openly for peace, dialogue and human rights, a stance that made him a frequent critic of successive authoritarian regimes in his Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire).
Grieving Catholics flocked to the Notre Dame du Congo cathedral in Kinshasa after its bells tolled at his death and the archdiocese tweeted “valiant solder of Christ, rest in peace”.
Cardinal Monsengwo, who was ordained a priest in 1963 and a bishop in 1980, became a major political figure in the DRC in 1991 when he took charge of the Sovereign National Conference to promote democracy amid mounting criticism of dictator Mobutu Seke Seko.
The following year, he became president of the High Council of the Republic for four years, another peace-seeking effort that however failed to ward off the dramatic second Congolese war of 1998-2002.
“My vocation as a man of the Church was to reconcile sons and daughters of the same country,” he said at the time.
He was twice head of the Congolese Bishops Conference and also president of SCEAM, the episcopal conference of Africa and Madagascar from 1997 to 2003.
The Catholic Church is one of the few national institutions in the DRC. Although it represents only 40 per cent of the population, this gives it an influence on political and social questions beyond its ranks.
The French bishops’ conference hailed the late cardinal as "a great figure” of the Congolese Church. “A man of peace, he tirelessly committed himself to dialogue and reconciliation in his country. A man of determination and courage, he denounced, without concession, the excesses and political compromises he witnessed,” they said.
The cardinal retired in November 2018, handing over to the now Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu.
Cardinal Monsengwo studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem under then then Fr Carlo Maria Martini, later the cardinal-archbishop of Milan. He was the first African to obtain a doctorate in Biblical studies.
He was appointed to Kinshasa by Pope Benedict in December 2007 and also served as co-president of Pax Christi International from 2007 to 2010. He was also a member at different times of five different Vatican dicasteries, those of Catholic Education, Justice and Peace, Culture, Social Communications and the Evangelisation of Peoples..
Environment Minister Eve Bazaiba called his death a “huge loss” for their country. “Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo was … a devoted prelate (and) a staunch defender of the interests of the Church and of the Congolese people,” she said.
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