Father Ubald Rugirangoga, a Catholic priest and healer, survivor of the Rwandan genocide and a regular Jackson visitor for more than a decade, died Thursday in Salt Lake City.
He had been hospitalized since October after contracting COVID-19. Heâs believed to have been exposed in September during a evangelizing trip to Wisconsin. He became sick within days after returning to Jackson.
Besides being renowned as a healer, Father Ubald was known for preaching peace and forgiveness, basing his message on his own experiences during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which intertribal strife led to some 800,000 Tutsis being slaughtered in 30 days by their Hutu neighbors. Among those people Rugirangoga forgave was the man who murdered his mother.