There are a lot of famous Jesuit saints, many of whom you know by just one name: Ignatius, Xavier, Canisius, Gonzaga, the list goes on. But there are countless holy Jesuits (and other Ignatian-inspired women and men of faith) whose incredible stories aren’t as well-known. Despite their lower profiles, their lives of heroic virtue can inspire us today as we seek to follow Christ more closely. So we asked the writer Meg Hunter-Kilmer to introduce us to 10 of these “friends of Ignatius.”
Hunter-Kilmer is a renowned American Catholic writer whose work on saints has been featured in her books “Saints Around the World” and “Pray for Us: 75 Saints Who Sinned, Suffered, and Struggled on Their Way to Holiness.” She picked 10 women and men from the wide Ignatian family whose causes for sainthood have officially been opened.
Each essay in this series, which will run monthly, is accompanied by an original artwork of the featured friend of Ignatius.
Christophe Munzihirwa
Archbishop Munzihirwa should have fled. He should have hidden. He should have kept his mouth shut and saved his neck.
But he wasn’t that kind of prelate. He had spent his life fighting for the marginalized and he wouldn’t stop — even if it killed him.
Christophe Munzihirwa Mwene Ngabo, SJ (Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1929-1996), had entered the minor seminary as a child and been ordained a diocesan priest at 32. Five years later he entered the Jesuit order, after which he earned a doctorate in sociology. He was made provincial superior of the Jesuits in Central Africa, then coadjutor bishop of Kasongo, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), and finally archbishop of Bukavu.
But while his resumé makes him look like the consummate professional churchman, Munzihirwa was as much prophet as prelate, defying tyranny at every turn. In 1971, Fr. Munzihirwa was serving as formation director when the government drafted all military-aged men — including seminarians — into the army in retaliation for a series of student protests. He couldn’t defy the conscription, so in protest the 45-year-old priest went and enlisted alongside the young men he was leading, shaming the government by his presence among the young soldiers.
As Jesuit provincial, he moved into a refugee camp, living alongside the refugees in order to accompany them (and to put pressure on the authorities who were ignoring their plight). He was a tremendously simple man, who attached such meaning to his vow of poverty that at the end of his life — as archbishop — he owned only two shirts and two pairs of pants, which he washed by hand.
He refused to curry favor with Mobutu Sese Seko, dictator of Zaire. As bishop of Kasongo, Munzihirwa was preaching a Mass attended by many members of the military. He looked out at the congregation and spoke in a voice that echoed St. Oscar Romero: “Here before me I see these soldiers. I see the colonel. Stop troubling the people! I ask you, I order you: Stop it!”
When these powerful men responded in anger, the courageous bishop remained defiant. “I am ready,” he insisted. “Arrest me.” Mercifully, there were other bishops present who had been willing to play Mobutu’s games to remain in his good graces; they interceded and Munzihirwa was allowed to leave in peace.
All this work was rooted not in Munzihirwa’s own courage but in the Cross of Christ to which he clung. On the 25th anniversary of his ordination, he prayed, “May the memory of his cross remain at the core of my being” (“Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa,” Emmanuel Katongole).
When the genocide began in Rwanda in April of 1994, the border city of Bukavu (of which Bishop Munzihirwa was then apostolic administrator) received an influx of refugees; first it was the minority Tutsis, fleeing from the horrors being inflicted on them by their Hutu neighbors. After the killing ended, Hutus began flooding over the border to escape from the revenge many Tutsis sought. Through it all, Munzihirwa advocated mercy. He stood against the Hutu militants and the Tutsi avengers and even against his own government that did so very little to help.
Every time he took a stand, he knew he was risking his life. But Munzihirwa considered himself “a watchman of the people” and he would not hide himself in an episcopal fortress while the beloved of God were being slaughtered. No, like the Good Shepherd he would stand watch. He would put himself between his people and their enemies.
Archbishop Munzihirwa didn’t just preach. He entered into the suffering of his people — and of their neighbors.
A month after the end of the genocide — which killed some three-quarters of a million people — Munzihirwa gave a homily in which he insisted on forgiveness even as the killing continued: “In these days, when we continue to dig common graves, where misery and sickness appear along thousands of kilometers, on routes, along pathways and in fields … we are particularly challenged by the cry of Christ on the Cross: ‘Father, forgive them.’” He spoke this to survivors of genocide and to perpetrators of genocide, to Zairean soldiers who had abused their power and to parents who could no longer feed their children because of the instability caused by a war they had nothing to do with. “Father, forgive them.”
But Archbishop Munzihirwa didn’t just preach. He entered into the suffering of his people — and of their neighbors. Many days he would cross over into Rwanda on the bridge from Bukavu; he would return later that day, helping children, the elderly and the infirm escape. And, of course, he lifted his voice to the international community. He decried the genocide and the world’s failure to act. He refused to stand idly by as refugees resisted the repatriation that the international community was attempting to force on them, saying to the refugees, “The refugee cannot be repatriated against his will, above all when he knows that almost certain death awaits him in his homeland” (“Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa,” Emmanuel Katongole).
And when the situation in Zaire continued to devolve, he refused to flee. As Rwandan soldiers approached the border, Archbishop Munzihirwa stayed put. He stood in the breach between his people and those who wished them harm. When encouraged to leave the area, Munzihirwa would have none of it. “I am the Muhudumu [watchman] of Bukavu,” he said. “Yes, I have the possibility of leaving, but where will the population of Bukavu flee to?” (“Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa,” Emmanuel Katongole)
And still he called for charity toward everybody. Two nights before he died, that was his message: “We Christians should know that our greatest weapon is charity towards every man and prayer to Christ with the help of Our Lady of the Rosary.” Not charity merely to Tutsis or to Hutus or to Zaireans or to the innocent or to the powerful. To everybody.
The day before he was killed, Munzihirwa was still using his voice on behalf of his people. On an October 28, 1996, radio address, he encouraged them to have hope, though there was no earthly reason to. “What can we still do these days?” he said. “Let us remain firm in faith. We trust that God will not abandon us and that a small ray of hope will arise for us somewhere. God will not abandon us if we are committed to respecting the life of our neighbors, whatever their ethnicity.”
Less than 24 hours later, he was dead.
He got up on the morning of October 29 and drove to a neighboring village to rescue two Rwandan Sisters whose lives were in danger. Then he met with local leaders to strategize, attempting to save Bukavu even as war was at the country’s doorstep.
Archbishop Munzihirwa should have fled. He should have hidden. He should have kept his mouth shut and saved his neck. But he wasn’t that kind of prelate. He had spent his life fighting for the marginalized and he wouldn’t stop — even if it killed him.
On his way home, he was stopped at a checkpoint. Munzihirwa got out of the car and approached his murderers, clinging to a crucifix. It seems that he hoped that by surrendering himself he would save the lives of his companions, but all were shot dead.
Achibishop Munzihirwa had expected to die. He had even prepared his friends to receive the news that he had been assassinated. His people were devastated, but when 450 other civilians were killed in Bukavu between that day and the next, their fear of violence was such that though thousands mourned, only 71 people attended Munzihirwa’s funeral. But they clung to the truth that their shepherd had been a prophet, a heroic man who had offered himself in union with Jesus for the salvation of his people.
At his funeral, they quoted his favorite saying: “There are things that can be seen only with eyes that have cried.” Achibishop Munzihirwa had cried much for love of his God and of his people. And now his eyes behold the face of God as we who are left behind wonder: How can we, too, follow the Gospel call to love and serve the needy, whatever the cost? Though we might not have the power or influence to decry genocide before the international community, can we speak and suffer and risk ourselves for the lost and forsaken in our own communities? Can we move beyond retweets and pocket change to real life-changing generosity? Like Servant of God Christophe Munzihirwa — like Jesus — can we love without counting the cost?
