Kabgayi is located just south of Gitarama in Muhanga District, Southern Province, Rwanda, 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Kigali.

Two of them (Vincent Nsengiyumva, the Archbishop of Kigali and Joseph Ruzindana, Bishop of Byumba) were refused by the Rwandan government to be transferred in their own cathedrals.

[citation needed] Kabgayi lies in the middle of Rwanda's central plateau at an elevation of about 6,000 feet (1,800 m) above sea level.

[1] Located in Kamazuru Village of Gahogo Cell in Nyamabuye Sector, it is a 5 minutes’ drive from Muhanga City.

[5] The Kingdom of Rwanda before the European colonial powers arrived was ruled by a Tutsi elite of about 15% of the population over a Hutu peasant class of about 85%.

[7] At first, the missions in Rwanda were under the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Victoria Nyanza, headed by John Joseph Hirth.

[8] Kabgayi was founded as a mission post after the Germans, the colonial power, had received reluctant permission from the court of King Musinga of Rwanda in 1904.

In response, the German authorities informed the missionaries that they must obtain permission from the Court for recruiting labor, and the colonial power would not assist them in this.

King Musinga, who was engaged in an internal power struggle, took care to maintain friendly relations with the missionaries, and in December 1906 told them he would like all his people to learn to pray.

[14] In July 1907 the fathers began to build a school in Kabgayi for the sons of Tutsi chiefs, whom they considered to be the natural leaders of the country.

[21] In 1952 Monsignor Aloys Bigirumwami, the first black Roman Catholic bishop in Belgian Africa, was consecrated at Kabgayi.

[22] In December 1954 the Kabgayi printing press issued the first number of Hobe, a magazine for children, with eight pages written in the kinyarwanda language.

[32] On 1 November 1959 the Hutu sub-chief Dominique Mbonyumutwa was assaulted by a gang of Tutsi youths near the Kabgayi mission.

He spoke out against the gap between the poor peasants of Rwanda and the elite in the cities, and called for equal access to government services and to credit for rural people.

Vincent Nsengiyumva, the Archbishop of Kigali, became a member of the Hutu MRND ruling party's central committee.

In 1991 the Bishop of Kabgayi, Thaddée Nsengiyumva, issued a pastoral letter that deeply criticized the widespread use of political assassination and lack of interest in reconciliation between the ethnic groups.

[44] Hutu extremists seized power in April 1994 and embarked on a systematic program to kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

[34] Tutsi refugees from the massacres began to arrive in Kabgayi in mid-April, where they lived in crowded conditions with little food or water, many suffering from malaria or dysentery.

[47] The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which had been formed by Tutsi exiles in Uganda, fought back and began to gain control of the country.

The government troops and the Interahamwe Hutu paramilitaries perpetuated mass killings before fleeing from the RPF, which took control of Kabgayi on 2 June 1994.

[59] Kabgayi today remains home to the Cathedral Basilica of The Immaculate Conception (Beatae Immaculatae Virginis), a spacious redbrick building erected in 1923.

[48] The consecration ceremony in April 1923 was attended by many colonial administrators and by King Musinga, drawing a large crowd of local people.

[60] The Belgian colonial rulers also made Kabgayi the location of a hospital and training schools for midwives, printers, carpenters and blacksmith and other trades.