Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya died this Sunday, July 11, in Versailles near Paris, at the age of 81, six days after his evacuation. "I have the deep pain of announcing to the comm ...

DRC: Cardinal Monsengwo, Archbishop Emeritus of Kinshasa, died in France

Laurent Monsengwo shortly after his appointment to the rank of cardinal, in November 2010. VINCENZO PINTO / AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

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Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya died this Sunday, July 11, in Versailles near Paris, at the age of 81, six days after his evacuation.

I have the deep sorrow to announce to the Catholic Christian community and to all people of good will the death of Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo

", tweeted Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, Archbishop of Kinshasa.

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“

I have the deep sorrow to announce to the Catholic Christian community and to all people of good will the death of Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo, this Sunday, June 11 in Versailles in France.
Let us intensify prayers for his eternal rest with the God he served,

”Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu wrote on his Twitter account.

I have the deep sorrow to announce to the Catholic Christian community and to all people of good will the death of Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo, this Sunday, June 11 in Versailles in France.

Let us intensify our prayers for his eternal rest with the God whom he served.

- Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu (@TataCardinal) July 11, 2021

Around 4:15 p.m. (3:15 p.m. UT) the bells of Notre-Dame du Congo cathedral rang.

A sacristan came to install the effigy of the late prelate at the altar as women, in tears, began to pour into the church.

Bishop Monsengo was one of the critical voices with regard to the various regimes which have succeeded one another in the DRC (ex-Zaire), that of the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, Laurent-Désiré Kabila (1997-2001), Joseph Kabila (2001) -2019), then Félix Tshisekedi.

Laurent Monsengwo did not mince his words.

Already at the time of Marshal Mobutu, his messages scratched the Congolese head of state without ever quoting him, this is what Mobutu's last chief of staff explained.

Thus, when it was a question of organizing a National Conference in 1992, Marshal Mobutu had done everything to avoid the appointment of Laurent Monsengwo as its head.

He had failed so much the personality of the cardinal was essential to all, recalls our special correspondent in Kinshasa,

Sonia Rolley.

It was he who introduced the word “democratization” into the discourse of the Catholic Church in the Congo in the 1980s. A Church which has since remained very involved at every moment in the country's history and which wants to be alongside the people.

While the National Conference is suspended by power, Christians take to the streets to demand its reopening.

In 2017, they are still working.

Some die on the forecourt of the churches under the bullets of the security forces and Laurent Monsengwo is always there to raise the tone.

Let the mediocre give off!

“, He had dared to declare at a press conference.

The second cardinal of the Congo did not like politicians, this is what all those who knew him say, which did not prevent him from being the most political of the prelates in the DRC.

He was a scholar who easily learned languages.

One of the most famous churchmen in the Vatican

Monsignor Monsengwo is one of the eight prelates chosen by Pope Francis to support him in his reform of the Roman Curia and the revision of the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus.

It was a great recognition.

Laurent Monsengwo also did part of his studies at the Vatican.

He is one of the very first Africans to have chosen exegesis, the analysis of the biblical text, as a subject of study… For that, one must know many languages: Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic.

He was a scholar, he played the organ, he composed.

Laurent Monsengwo has also done a lot for the recognition of the Zairian rite by the Vatican, which insists on the active participation of the assembly during the mass, allows a "

procession in cadence

", not a dance, specified at the time the Pope Benedict XVI.

Laurent Monsengwo, however, became a cardinal late in 2010.

Ordained a priest in 1963, made cardinal by Benedict XVI in 2010, this great figure of the African Catholic Church had ceded his chair at the head of the archdiocese of Kinshasa to Bishop Ambongo in November 2018.

► To read also: DRC: Cardinal Monsengwo, Desmond Tutu or Congolese Machiavelli?

#RDC #Monsengwo: "the Congolese people have just lost one of their greatest defenders", reacts @RFI historian Isidore Ndaywel

DRC: Cardinal Monsengwo, Archbishop Emeritus of Kinshasa, died in France

DRC: Cardinal Monsengwo, Archbishop Emeritus of Kinshasa, died in France

One of the most famous churchmen in the Vatican

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