Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides)- “Cardinal Etsou lived the last hours of his earthly life peacefully and serenely” said Father Valer Shango who assisted to the end Cardinal Frédérick Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi, Archbishop of Kinshasa, capital of Democratic Congo, who died in the evening of January 6 in a clinic in Louvain, Belgium, where he had had been for some months receiving treatment. The priest told Fides “In the morning I administered the Sacrament of the anointing of the sick to the Cardinal, then after we had prayed the Rosary together the Cardinal said: “The Lord has planned a wonderful day for me”.
Fr Valer says that “in his last hours on this earth the Cardinal’s thoughts went to his people in Congo. He said he would have liked to celebrate Christmas and New Year in Kinshasa, with his people, but then he smiled and added: “man proposes and the Lord decides” accepting serenely the will of the Father. He underlined that the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of peace. All his life he worked and prayed to restore peace in Congo. I believe his spiritual legacy is precisely this: to work that Congo may be united in industrious peace”.
In January last year in his last interview with Fides (see Fides 20 January 2006) the Cardinal expressed deep concern for the numerous street children in Kinshasa, easy prey for crime, saying “the Church would never abandon these street minors because they are our children, we baptised them, and also out of a sense of social responsibility. Youth gangs are fast becoming a serious threat to public order. They are real gangs with first headman and second headman. There have already been cases of police officers disarmed by determined and well organised young criminals”.
Cardinal Etsou, who suffered from diabetes, had been in Belgium for a few months for treatment.
While special prayers are being said in every parish in Kinshasa, a requiem Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday 10 January at the church of S. Boniface in Brussels, after which the Cardinal’s body will be flown home for the funeral in Kinshasa, on a date to be set, Rev. Valer told Fides.
The President of Congo Joseph Kabila expressed his sadness for the death of Cardinal Etsou and announced a national day of mourning on the day of the funeral.
Cardinal Etsou was born on 3 December 1930 at Mazologa, in the diocese of Lisala. He was ordained on 13 July 1958, elected titular archbishop of Menefessi on 8 July 1976. In 1977 appointed Archbishop of Mbanda-Bikoro, in 1990 Archbishop of Kinshasa. Pope John Paul II made him a Cardinal in the Concistory of 28 June 1991. (Agenzia Fides 8/1/2007 righe 40 parole 517)
