Only Three Seers in Rwanda

[Denise]

Only Three Seers in Rwanda


Motivational speaker Immaculée Ilibagiza is making a speaking tour of Australia, 29th June to 5th July. A victim of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, she lost all her family (her mother, father, and two brothers), and many other relatives and friends. She moved to the United States several years later.

Immaculée survived for a period of 91 days, in a small bathroom just a few feet wide, with seven other women. Yet in spite of her horrible ordeal, she preaches very powerfully the message of Christian forgiveness. I am sure we would all agree, that in a world with so much hatred and violence, this message is rarely heard, and certainly needs to be more frequently done.

Immaculée has written three books, Left to Tell (which documents her ordeal); Led by Faith, and Our Lady of Kibeho, the latter which speaks about apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in this town, several years before the terrible events happened.

It is the latter where there are legitimate concerns.



Several young women (Alphonsine, Anathalie & Marie Claire) who were attending a Catholic girls school in Kibeho, claimed apparitions of Mary between 1981 and 1989. Alphonsine is now a cloistered nun in the Ivory Coast; Anathalie sill lives in Kibeho, where she works as a sacristan; Marie-Claire was murdered in the carnage.

This town witnessed one of the worst massacres in the Rwandan genocide on April 22, 1995, with the deaths of 4,000 people by the Rwandan military, which interestingly was witnessed by Australian soldiers who were part of a UN peacekeeping effort! The school the girls went too, was the epicentre of the murders.

One of the visions the girls received in 1982 was of " a river of blood, people were killing each other, abandoned corpses with no one to bury them, a tree all in flames, bodies without their heads". How true this proved to be! (I remember reading this before the events happened).

But eventually, a whole lot of people in the village claimed apparitions, and when the Church started investigating this, as many as a dozen people were interviewed having claimed these extraordinary events.

After many years of investigation, Bishop Augustin Misago of the diocese of Gikongoro approved the Kibeho apparitions on June 29, 2001 and the pastoral letter was published in the Vatican newspaper.

However, he only approved the visions that were received by the three girls at the Catholic girls school as mentioned above, and only visions of Mary.

None of the claimed visitations of Jesus Christ in the town, or any other people who claimed visions received any approval.

Only Alphonsine, Anathalie & Marie Claire are approved by the Church, as authentic.

However, in her book and in her talks, Immaculée does not make these distinctions, and talks about the alleged seers, as if they were all true. Regularly at her talks, she has with her one of the unapproved Kibeho seer's by the name of Valentina, who now lives in Belgium. Immaculée also promotes other unapproved apparitions, (Medjugorje and Garabandal, etc) speaking about them as if they were true.

Rwanda is not the easiest place to contact. Bishop Misago's email address is not working, his fax machine is not operational. So I could not receive anything from him in writing at this present time.

However, I did telephone him and he has told me the following things:

"Immaculée Ilibagize conducts her own independent program. What she says about the unapproved seers of Kibeho is not true. She endorses false seers, not approved of by me, and she does not speak on behalf of the Catholic Church, or with it's approval. "

I wanted to get something from the bishop in writing, that I could circulate, but because of the problems mentioned above, this has not been possible. However I am happy to pass on his telephone number, which is publicly accessible. (250-252-535-079)

Bishop Misago spent a year in prison himself, falsely accused of complicity in the Rwandan massacres, but was found not guilty of all charges by a court in 2000.

I hope Immaculée will be able to motivate people about the things in life that are really important, and I support in the main what she is trying to do. However, in justice it is important to let others know what the bishop has officially declared.

God bless

Andrew

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