HENRI TUTU ZIKI2026-10-282026-10-282026-10-25https://repository.cuea.edu/handle/123456789/709THESISPeaceful coexistence is essential for sustainable development, social stability, and human well-being. Religious institutions, including the Catholic Church, contribute to peacebuilding through moral formation, reconciliation, mediation, dialogue, humanitarian assistance, and community mobilization. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), considerable attention has focused on the Church’s national peacebuilding role, while empirical attention to diocesan and parish-level initiatives remains limited. This study examined the Catholic Church’s contribution to peaceful coexistence among parishioners in the Kenge Catholic Diocese, DRC. Guided by General Systems Theory and Social Capital Theory, the study examined the Church’s peacebuilding activities, assessed their contribution to peaceful coexistence, identified challenges affecting peacebuilding efforts, and proposed strategies for strengthening the Church’s contribution. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional convergent parallel mixed-methods design. Quantitative data were collected from 380 parishioners who completed structured questionnaires, representing a 95% response rate from 400 questionnaires distributed. Qualitative data were obtained from 20 purposively selected participants, including clergy, Justice and Peace Commission members, parish leaders, youth and women’s leaders, and community representatives, through interviews and focus group discussions. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics in SPSS, while qualitative data were analyzed thematically and integrated with the quantitative findings. The findings showed that the Catholic Church actively engaged in peace education, preaching on forgiveness and reconciliation, conflict mediation, dialogue, pastoral counselling, humanitarian assistance, and Justice and Peace Commission activities, with an overall mean of 3.94. These activities were perceived to contribute positively to peaceful coexistence through reconciliation, trust, social cohesion, and non-violent conflict resolution, with an overall mean of 4.02. Major challenges included poverty and unemployment (M = 4.15), ethnic differences (M = 4.07), limited financial resources (M = 4.05), insecurity, and limited institutional capacity, with overall challenges mean of 4.00. Strategies for strengthening the Church’s contribution recorded an overall mean of 4.18. The study concludes that the Catholic Church plays an important grassroots role in promoting peaceful coexistence in Kenge Diocese. It recommends strengthening reconciliation and peace education programmes, providing adequate resources to Justice and Peace Commission structures, enhancing clergy and lay leadership training, increasing youth and women’s participation, and strengthening collaboration with government and civil society organizations.en-USCatholic Churchpeaceful coexistencepeacebuildingconflict resolutioninterfaith dialoguesocial cohesionparishionerschurch contributionsKenge DioceseDemocratic Republic of the CongoThesis