This agency clarified on this Monday, April 22, 2024, about the statements made by Cardinal Ambongo in Italian. "Inaccuracies (now corrected) had crept in during the translation from the original version of the interview (which took place in Italian) to other languages," wrote the Fides Agency this Monday.

In some cases, notes the media, "the Cardinal was attributed the intention of accusing the civil authorities of his country by adopting 'de facto' theses and arguments used against them by leaders of other nations currently in conflict with the Democratic Republic of Congo."

For this agency, the Cardinal did not make the following statements: "the government distributed additional weapons to various armed groups such as the Wazalendo and some members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)." However, this sentence caused a lot of ink to flow and tongues to wag in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Moreover, the departure of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Kinshasa for Rome had already encountered hitches at N’djili International Airport where the prelate supposedly did not have access to the VIP lounge of this airport facility. This led some to suggest that these controversial remarks were but a form of settling scores with the Congolese government, which has recently been at odds with the Archbishop of Kinshasa.

In the end, the concerned media outlet offered apologies to both the cardinal and to everyone who felt perplexed following these statements. "We offer our apologies to the cardinal himself and to all those who may have been perplexed or embittered by the content and headlines broadcast in reactions to the article," can be read in this clarification.

Well before these controversial remarks, Cardinal Ambongo had already been at the center of a controversy sparked by his statements made on March 31 during the Easter Mass. In his speech, he seemed to justify the rebellion of the AFC-M23. Fridolin Ambongo argued that those who rebel do so because they are excluded from the "cake" in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A form of justification that had alarmed the government. "Whatever the reasons, one cannot support Congolese who want to take up arms to kill Congolese in order to gain power," reacted his spokesperson, Patrick Muyaya. He had even asked Cardinal Ambongo to "clarify" his remarks.

"(…) The words of the cardinal, I hope he will make a clarification, can be perceived as an encouragement, as moral support to those who choose to take up arms to think of conquering power, while we have been in a cycle for 2 years that wants us to be able to get out of this," he added.

Dido Nsapu