{"id":639,"date":"2014-04-11T14:37:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T18:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/?p=639"},"modified":"2017-05-25T13:15:23","modified_gmt":"2017-05-25T17:15:23","slug":"father-xavier-fagba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/2014\/04\/11\/father-xavier-fagba\/","title":{"rendered":"Father Xavier Fagba"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"After<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot be silent and cower in the face of injustice, but must have courage. To be a Christian is not just about being baptized, and true Christians live a life of love and reconciliation, not bloodshed.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Father Xavier-Arnauld Fagba is a notable example of a leader who lives out love and forgiveness\u00a0in the face of trials. As the leader of a Catholic congregation in the Central African Republic town of\u00a0Boali, Father Fagba has had plenty of opportunities to decide whether to encourage peace or revenge. The\u00a0nation of Central African Republic has been the sight of much violence both before and after the Muslim\u00a0rebel group Seleka overthrew the government in March 2013(1). The Seleka particularly targeted Christians\u00a0in villages across the country leading up to the coup. They spread terror and violence in their wake. In\u00a0response to this violence, Christian militias began popping up to defend themselves against the group. As\u00a0the Seleka were partially disbanded and pushed back, these new militias began to hunt down Muslim\u00a0populations in retribution for the Seleka\u2019s actions. It is precisely these groups, and more particularly the\u00a0Anti-Balaka group, which have caused Boali\u2019s Muslim population to hide. In the midst of this tense\u00a0situation Father Fagba went house to house, drawing out Muslims to seek shelter in the relative safety of\u00a0his Church. His efforts have protected 650 Muslims from the village.<\/p>\n

During a recent Sunday service Father Fagba told his congregation \u201cwe cannot be silent and\u00a0cower in the face of injustice, but must have courage.\u201d(2) The Father does not just speak these words, but has chosen to live it himself. He has exhibited that courage by facing down those in the town who seek to\u00a0scare him into giving up those he is protecting. Speaking of his choice to house his neighbors, he\u00a0expressed “when I did this, nobody in the community understood me. They attacked and threatened me.\u201d(3) There has even been gunfire aimed at the Church walls in an attempt to harm those inside. But Father\u00a0Fagba will not back down. He believes that his role is to \u201clive a life of love and reconciliation, not\u00a0bloodshed.”(4) This reconciliation is not only for his Muslim neighbors, but also for his whole community\u00a0whom he continues to encourage to \u201c stand up and prove the strength and quality of their faith.\u201d(5)<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. BBC. \u201cCentral African Republic profile\u201d BBC Online. http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-13150040. Accessed 4\/4\/14.<\/li>\n
  2. Bouckaert, Peter. \u201cDispatches: Central African Republic- \u201cWe will take our revenge\u201d Human Rights Watch Online. http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2014\/01\/28\/dispatches-central-african-republic-we-will-take-our-revenge. Accessed 4\/4\/14.<\/li>\n
  3. Harding, Andrew. \u201cCAR Crisis: The Church sheltering Muslims\u201d BBC Online. http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-26169941. Accessed 4\/3\/14.<\/li>\n
  4. Bouchaert. \u201cDispatches: Central African Republic.\u201d (See footnote 2).<\/li>\n
  5. Harding. \u201cCAR Crisis.\u201d (see footnote 3).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u201cWe cannot be silent and cower in the face of injustice, but must have courage. To be a Christian is not just about being baptized, and true Christians live a life of love and reconciliation, not bloodshed.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Father Xavier-Arnauld Fagba is a notable example of a leader who lives out love and forgiveness\u00a0in the face of trials. As the leader of a Catholic congregation in the Central African Republic town of\u00a0Boali, Father Fagba has had plenty of opportunities to decide whether to encourage peace or revenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1862,"featured_media":816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,15,96],"tags":[55,57,59,56,26,58,27],"class_list":["post-639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-news-2","category-slideshow","tag-central-african-republic","tag-christians","tag-conflict","tag-fagba","tag-forgiveness","tag-muslims","tag-reconciliation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1862"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions\/740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/diplomacyresearch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}