Bilateral relations between the Republic of Rwanda and the Holly See started officially on 6th June 1964.
These relations were profoundly affected with involvement of members of the Catholic Church into the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, hence the May 2017 apology by the Pope Francis for “the sins and failings of the church and its members, among whom priests and religious men and women who succumbed to hatred and violence, betraying their own evangelical mission”, which opened a beginning of a new chapter in the relations between Rwanda and the Holy See.