MISNA
Congo DR
10.05.00
Monsignor Emmanuel Kataliko, Archbishop of Bukavu (Democratic Republic of Congo): a name that will remain forever in the memory of those who love Africa. He was the father of the civil society of a forgotten continent. The commotion for his passing has no boundaries. Many will dearly miss him: first of all his people of Kivu, one of Africa's regions most affected by violence. He has a special place in the hearts of anyone that ever met him, even just in passing, throughout the world. When last February he was banned from returning to his Archdiocese and was confined to the Congolese city of Butembo, many joined their voices to invoke his liberation, including Pope John Paul II. He was a man of God because he believed in the prophecy. He had the charisma to know how to interpret the tragedy of his people as a story of salvation. He testified the evangelic paradox of the binomial "death and resurrection" with singular efficacy and surprising serenity. When news arrived yesterday regarding his sudden death from a heart attack, so many people asked themselves how the Congolese people are going to face the abuse by the warlords now that he is gone. Who is going to take his place? It is a legitimate question given that the war in ex-Zaire is continuing relentlessly. The 68-yer-old prelate was in Italy to participate, as vice-chairman of the Congolese Bishops Conference, the meeting of the SECAM (Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar) in Rocca di Papa (Rome, Italy). Monsignor Kataliko was brought to the Marino Hospital in Rome on Tuesday evening and the doctors were not able to save him. His heart was surely weakened by the poison forced on him by the many enemies of peace: humiliation, oppression and vexation. Monsignor Kataliko was born in Lukale (then diocese of Beni-Butembo) in 1932. He was ordained priest on the 20th of December of 1958 and consecrated Bishop of Butembo on the 11th of October 1966. He was head of the Archdiocese of Bukavu since May of 1998, when he replaced his heroic predecessor Monsignor Christophe Munzihirwa Mwene Ngabo. Monsignor Munzihirwa was assassinated during the conquest of Bukavu, which took place during the war that devastated then Zaire from 1996-1997. One thing is certain: in Paradise they will both continue invoking the benediction of God on a nation where hatred reigns supreme and where the defenceless women, elderly and children are paying the highest price. Before his death, Monsignor Kataliko prayed for his dead, those that fell in the unpunished massacres of Kasika (August 1998), Makobola (January 1999), Katogota (May 2000) and many many others...He believed in the communion of saints, as he believed that is what the thousands of victims were. All we can do is remember him as an example of a father and pray that his life was not sacrificed in vain. (BO)