Filed at 10:47 a.m. ET

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- The Vatican said Saturday it was ``surprised'' by the conviction of two Rwandan nuns for their role in that country's 1994 genocide, saying they were being singled out for blame among the many responsible for the slaughter.

The Vatican also insisted that the Roman Catholic church is not responsible for the misdeeds of its members.

The two nuns were convicted of homicide Friday in Brussels, Belgium, along with two other Rwandans. The nuns had been accused of helping Hutus massacre thousands of Tutsis who had taken refuge at their convent in April 1994.

``The Holy See cannot but express a certain surprise at seeing the grave responsibility of so many people and groups involved in this tremendous genocide in the heart of Africa heaped on so few people,'' Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement.

Navarro-Valls' statement cited a 1996 letter from Pope John Paul II to Rwandans saying the church cannot be held responsible for the misdeeds of individual members.

The letter also said that ``all the members of the Church who have sinned during the genocide must have the courage to bear the consequences of the deeds that they have committed against God and against their future.''

The pope's letter came a full two years after the genocidal blood bath in which 500,000 people, mostly members of Rwanda's Tutsi minority, died. It was the Vatican's first response to allegations that some priests and nuns encouraged or even took part in the genocide and that the church did nothing to stop them.

The jury in Brussels handed a sentence of 15 years in prison to Sister Gertrude, mother superior at the Sovu convent, in prison for her role in the April 1994 massacres of up to 7,000 people seeking shelter at the convent.

Sister Maria Kisito was sentenced to 12 years in prison for, among other deeds, helping a mob burn the convent's garage, which packed with an estimated 500 terrified people.

Witnesses said Sister Gertrude refused to give refugees sanctuary. Other testimony said the two nuns colluded with the killers, showing them where refugees were hiding.

The defense argued that the nuns were innocent bystanders.

The nuns, along with two other people convicted Friday, had fled to Belgium -- Rwanda's former colonial ruler -- after the Tutsi rebels took control of the country in July 1994 and put an end to the genocide.

The trial was held under a law giving local courts in Belgium jurisdiction over criminals wherever they may hide.

The Vatican said Saturday that it hoped the nuns had been given a fair trial and that ``what was decided in a country so far from Rwanda had been put in the context of extremely violent events and great confusion.''