AFRICA/DR CONGO - The Episcopal Conference responds to the accusations of the Deputy Prime Minister

Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - "We regret these news stories, which are full of allusions and attacks against the Catholic Church in the Democratic Republic of Congo," says a statement from the General Secretariat of the Bishops' Conference of Congo in response to a radio interview with the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jean-Pierre Bemba. In an interview with "Radio Top Congo" on December 4, the Deputy Prime Minister said, among other things: "There is bad faith among politicians (...) who make speeches inciting hatred against the regime (...)" and "some political leaders of religious faith (...) systematically attack the Head of State with angry hate speech".
Bemba also claimed that the 47 Congolese dioceses each receive one million dollars from the President of the Republic for charitable and development work, insinuating that these funds are mismanaged or embezzled. In the response read by the Secretary of the Episcopal Conference, Bishop Donatien Nshole, in a video posted on social media, he asks: "Where is the hatred in the message of the Catholic Church? We ask for concrete evidence." He further stressed that, within the framework of the Agreement between the Holy See and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Congolese government and the Catholic Church "have decided to work together in the implementation of social and economic projects for the benefit of the local population." "To date, more than two years after the signing of the agreement, only two tranches of $300,000 have been made available (by the government), the first in 2022, the second in 2023, for a total of $600,000 per diocese," says the statement from the Secretary General, who recalls that "a report (on the progress of the work) with photographic evidence was delivered to the Head of State." The minister's statements are in the context of the controversy surrounding the revision of the constitution, which allows incumbent President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi to run for a third term. Some local church leaders had spoken out against such a reform (see Fides, 28/10/2024 and 25/11/2024), while the Deputy Prime Minister's party, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (Mouvement de Libèration de Congo, MLC), expressed its "full support" for the constitutional revision project. In a statement dated December 5, the MLC stated: "The MLC reiterates its full support for the initiative of the President of the Republic to revise or amend the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Congo. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 13/12/2024)

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