The country’s Attorney General wants the Catholic leader silenced and prosecuted. Why?
by Massimo Introvigne
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, on April 27 the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, Firmin Mvonde Mambu, sent a letter to the Chief Prosecutor of Kinshasa-Matete, of which “Bitter Winter” publishes a copy. The Attorney General orders the Chief Prosecutor to initiate legal proceedings against Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kinshasa.
“I hereby order you to open a judicial file against the above-mentioned prelate,” writes the Attorney General, “who deliberately violates consciences and seems to find pleasure in spreading false rumors and other incitements for the population to revolt against established institutions and in plots against human lives.”
The Attorney General threatens the Chief Prosecutor that failure to prosecute the Cardinal “would be considered as complicity in the above-mentioned reprehensible acts.” Ambongo is accused in particular of issuing “a constant stream of seditious remarks made during press briefings, interviews, and other sermons” that are “likely to discourage the soldiers of the Republic’s armed forces who are fighting at the front, but also inciting the mistreatment by rebels and other invaders of local populations already battered by so many years of destabilization.”
The context is a long conflict between the Catholic Church and the government of President Félix Tshisekedi. Catholic bishops raised questions about possible frauds in the December 2023 elections that re-elected Tshisekedi for a second term. They also blamed the government for the instability and the war in the eastern part of the country, which lead inter alia to the assassination of Italian Ambassador Luca Attanasio and another two persons in North Kivu on February 22, 2021, followed on March 5, 2021, by the killing of Mwilanya Asani William, the attorney who was investigating the deaths of the three men.
Ambongo has been particularly vocal in denouncing the responsibility of the government for the deteriorating situation. In an interview of April 18 with the Vatican agency Fides, the Cardinal gave the impression of accusing the Tshisekedi administration of supplying weapons to militias and to insurgents opposing the government of nearby Rwanda. In fact, the Italian original of the interview was more nuanced that the English version, as Fides pointed out.
Ambongo’s office also denounced that the Cardinal has been recently denied access to the VIP lounge at Kinshasa airport. The problem is not free cocktails but the fact that Ambongo has received repeated death threats and making them pass through the VIP lounge is a measure routinely adopted in Kinshasa to protect those needing additional security.
Ambongo was selected by Pope Francis as a member of C9, the council of cardinals discussing the reform of the Roman Curia. Recently, he was frequently mentioned in the media as a leading critic of “Fiducia supplicans,” the Vatican document allowing for blessing of same-sex couple that has proven unpopular among many African bishops.
