He belonged to one of the royal families of Basakata; his second name, Monsengwo, means "nephew of the traditional chief".

When dictator Mobutu Sese Seko was losing his grip on power in the mid-1990s, the country needed someone of unimpeachable integrity to engineer the transition.

Pope Benedict XVI transferred him to the metropolitan see of Kinshasa on 6 December 2007[1] after the death of Cardinal Frédéric Etsou-Nzabi-Bamungwabi in January 2007.

[3] Pope Benedict XVI named him special secretary for the Synod of Bishops held in October 2008,[4] and delegate-president for that of 2012.

Not by leaving each other with their privileges and their rights, but in abolishing exclusion, in pulling down the wall of cultural and social separation, in destroying the hatred which He crucified upon the cross with his body.

Jews and Gentiles are no longer foreigners, or strangers, but close friends, fellow-citizens of the saints, and each one has the same heritage (Eph 3:6) having belonged in the past to the one Israel.

[8] On 20 November 2010 Pope Benedict made him Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria Regina Pacis a Ostia Lido.

[14] In December 2011 Monsengwo Pasinya contradicted Kabila when he assessed the 2011 election in the Congo by saying the results "do not conform either to truth or to justice".

On 13 April 2013, he was appointed to the Council of Cardinals, a group Pope Francis established a month after his election to advise him and to study a plan for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, Pastor Bonus.

[21] On 12 December 2018, the Vatican announced that Monsengwo Pasinya would be leaving the Council of Cardinals as part of his retirement as well.