The Archbishop of Canterbury will travel to Harare in October and will seek a meeting with Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe to plead the case for the country’s persecuted Anglicans.
Dr Williams will also visit Malawi and Zambia during his tour of the Church of the Province of Central Africa, and is expected to offer moral encouragement to the Church. President Mugabe’s office has not decided whether the country’s leader since independence will meet with Dr Williams ”” who has been a harsh critic of the regime.
A spokesman for Lambeth Palace confirmed “the Archbishop is visiting Zimbabwe as part of a wider trip, which will also see him visit Malawi and Zambia,” but noted the itinerary had yet to be finalised.
Maybe now Rowan and the GLBT crowd will hear the infamous “dogs” remark straight from Mugabe’s own mouth, the man who really said it, instead of +Akinola to whom it was intentionally wrongly attributed.
These are dark days in Zimbabwe. There are signs of further disintegration. On 15th August the body of Solomon Mujuru (aged 62) was found in the burnt-out ruins of the farmhouse he had seized near Beatrice, south of Harare. He is an army general, and husband of the Vice-President, Joyce Mujuru. He and his wife both shared in the ‘liberation struggle’. They have always been close to Mugabe. Now – consider this – even his wife says that the death is suspicious and has called for it to be investigated. But the investigation has been bungled right from the start and is going nowhere. My point is this: even in the ruling party there is now clearly vicious in-fighting as they jostle for position to succeed the ailing Mugabe who is slowly dying from what is believed to be prostate cancer. If you read that he has been succeeded by the sinister Minister of Defence, Emmerson Mnangagwa, abandon all hope. I grind through all this simply to make the point that in the current climate there is something close to hysteria at times as anybody with a modicum of power tries to grab more: more property, more money, more influence, but above all more property which alone offers security in a country which has abandoned its own currency and now operates mostly in US $. Against this backdrop we have the episcopus vagans Kunonga grabbing what he can of Anglican church property. He has no popular support. The saddest thing is that the courts have become so corrupted as to support with him with their judicial decisions which would be ludicrous were it not for the fact that decent rectors and their wives are now being driven from their rectories. Faithful congregations (eg in Greendale, suburb of Harare) now have their services in the hall, or in the open, while a tiny number of people meet with the Kungonga stooge in the church itself. I do hope that contrary to this press release that Abp Williams does not ‘plead the cause’ of the real church. The idea of pleading with Mugabe is monstrous, a truckling to the passing power of a wicked dictator. In one sense I dread his passing – the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe will then be intimidated into a big state funeral with requiem Mass. But then we all need to prayed for at the hour of our death. Finally, the chief justice Godfrey Chidayusiku who issued this declaration giving property to the imposter is himself a product of Christian education, having been to Mukumbi mission and St Ignatius College Chishawasha, both founded by the Jesuits. But he is a Mugabe clone. Kyrie, eleison. I apologise for a long post.
Good backgrond, thank you. How desperately sad that even the products of Christian education have been corrupted in Africa. Lord Acton’s dictum is so sadly true.