By Eric Connolly

Could you forgive someone who, for more than three months, wanted nothing more than to kill you?

Someone who called for you by name, saying his machete had killed 399 members of your tribe and would make you “number 400?”

Could you forgive someone who attempted to destroy your entire race?

After 91 days spent with seven other women in a 3 foot by 5 foot bathroom, hiding from machete-wielding Hutu radicals in Rwanda as they sought to kill every last Tutsi, Immaculee Ilibagiza found the strength to forgive.

She told her story March 20 at the Affirming the Culture of Life conference, held at St. Bernard’s Parish in Billings. The two Montana dioceses jointly sponsored the two-day conference, which featured four presenters in addition to Rwandan genocide survivor Illibagiza, author of a New York Times best-seller about her experience.

During her 91 days in the tiny bathroom, Ilibagiza began praying the rosary while the killers searched for any hiding Tutsis, even searching the house where she hid and calling her by name. She prayed the rosary 27 times a day and, through prayer, she found it essential to forgive her oppressors and what they were doing to her people.

“Deeply, we are so much the same, we all get hurt in some way,” Illibagiza said in an interview, “No one is evil. People have the choice to embrace good or embrace evil, but the person alone, the person is not evil.”

Today, Illibagiza is a speaker of world renown on issues of faith and forgiveness. Her first book, “Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust” rose to the New York Times bestseller list. Illibagiza also wrote “Led By Faith: Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan Genocide” and “Our Lady of Kibeho; Mary Speaks to the World from the Heart of Africa.”

“I read Immaculee’s book in high school and since then she is probably the person that I’ve wanted to meet most in the world,” said Katherine Schiedermayer, a University of Montana student at the Billings conference. “Immaculee’s story just teaches us about forgiveness, about unconditional love and that we all have the ability and power to forgive.”

Also speaking at the conference was John L. Carr, director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Department of Social Development and World Peace. Carr spoke about the need for a consistent ethic of life.

Former RCA recording artist Michael Bethea and former model and actress Trish Short, both of EWTN Global Catholic Television’s “Chaplet of Divine Mercy in Song,” led the conference in praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy as activity ended on each of the conference’s two days. Bethea also provided music during a number of breaks.

Camille De Blasi Pauley is president and co-founder of Healing the Culture, a pro-life education organization, and has worked in the pro-life movement for more than 15 years.

De Blasi Pauley presented a concise argument, based on philosophy and law, for the pro-life stance and also provided a Christian foundation.

“If you do not see the image and likeness of God in yourself, you’re not going to see it in an unborn child,” she said.

“If you forget about the transcendental human person, you have missed an essential piece of data and you are not getting the full picture.”

The Billings conference emphasized respect for the culture of life against all odds, even in conditions as extreme as those Ilibagiza faced.

“We all have a purpose,” she said in an interview. “We are all children trapped in a net, and the only way out is love.”

The Diocese of Helena plans to host the 2011 Affirming the Culture of Life conference.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 4, April 16, 2010.