Statement by the Archbishops of Canterbury, Central Africa, and Southern Africa and the President of the All Africa Conference of Churches the Archbishop of Tanzania….
Since 2007 Anglican congregations in Zimbabwe have suffered serious persecution at the hands of the police. They have been intimidated. Their churches have been closed. Properties, including schools and clinics, have been seized.
As representatives of the Anglican Communion, and with the support of ecumenical friends worldwide, we strongly and unequivocally support the efforts of ordinary Anglicans to worship in peace and to minister to the spiritual and material needs of their communities.
I am pleasantly surprised, first of all that Mugabe (to judge from BBC news this evening) gave Abp Rowan Williams a respectful reception. Second, I am surprised and delighted that this statement is clear, crisp and forthright, with the attached dossier to back it up. All to the good. My reservation is that while it was inevitable that they would have to ask Mugabe to step in, doing so is always fraught with danger – that he will regard it as a precedent for further interference in church affairs, or that he will demand some quid pro quo.
Agreed, Fr. Tee.
I too feared that Dictator Mugabe would simply refuse to meet the Anglican leaders. And I’m pleasantly surprised that the public statement released was so clear and forceful (more than some past statements put out by ++RW). And that welcome clarity may well be due to the fact that it’s the joint statement of all four archbishops, and doesn’t come from just Canterbury alone.
I just wish that ++RW would treat the schismatic American and Canadian primates the same way that he rightly treated that pseudo-bp Kunonga. That is, I wish he had the courage and sense to shun them too, as many Global South Anglican primates have done.
David Handy+