Kinshasa – “We want to give the authorities time to resolve the matter peacefully, as they promised.” Monsignor Fulgence Muteba, Archbishop of Lubumbashi made the statement during the Eucharistic celebration on Sunday, 8 November, announcing the postponement of a protest march originally scheduled for November 9. The march, organized by the Archdiocese, was intended to press for a resolution to a long-standing dispute concerning Saint Paul Interdiocesan Major Seminary, located in the Tshamalale neighborhood, in the municipality of Annexe, in Lubumbashi.
“If the authorities fail to honor their promise, we will return even stronger and in even greater numbers,” the Archbishop added.
The demonstration was intended to urge the municipal authorities of Lubumbashi to enforce a court ruling ordering the demolition of illegally erected buildings on land allocated to St Paul Interdiocesan Major Seminary in Tshamalale. The Church claims to have held the land concession since 1976 and to have obtained several favourable court rulings, none of which, however, have been enforced.
According to a statement issued by the Archdiocese of Lubumbashi, seminarians, men and women religious, and Catholic faithful had been invited to take part in the peaceful march. The procession was due to set off from the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul and conclude outside the Lubumbashi municipal headquarters.
The dispute over the seminary is part of a broader climate of tension and violence which, in recent times, has affected clergy members and several Church institutions across the Archdiocese.
On Sunday, November 8, around twenty unidentified men in uniform stormed IMA Kafubu College, located approximately 12 kilometres south of Lubumbashi, in Kipushi Territory, Haut-Katanga Province. The assailants targeted the school’s prefect of studies and stole several valuable items.
According to an ecclesiastical source, the attackers violently assaulted Father Odorick Lenge, the institution’s prefect of studies, before breaking into several rooms and making off with valuables. The priest was hospitalized after sustaining injuries from the beating and suffering shock.
In late October, Monsignor Muteba, who also serves as President of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo , had already denounced an armed incursion into the Notre-Dame de la Paix parish in Lubumbashi’s Gécamines neighborhood.
According to accounts gathered from parishioners, during the night of 26–27 October, several men armed with rifles and machetes broke into the parish residence and violently assaulted the priests present. The caretaker was also seriously injured and taken to hospital.
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