Central Africa Issues Ultimatum to Kunonga: CEN 10.19.07 p 6.

DR KUNONGA must go, the Church of the Province of Central Africa has said,calling upon the controversial Bishop of Harare to relinquish control of diocesan assets this week or face a civil lawsuit.‘There is no justification for your continued conduct of Episcopal duties as Diocesan Bishop’ of Harare, lawyers acting on behalf of the Province told Dr Kunonga last week.

Critics of Dr Kunonga, a close ally of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, charge the Harare bishop with exploiting the Communion’s difficulties for his own purposes. “The issue of homosexuality [is] simply a cover for the real underlying issue: a quest for power,” the Bishop of Botswana, Trevor Mwamba said.

Dr Kunonga has claimed that in August his Diocesan Synod voted to quit the province over its alleged support of homosexuality. However, the Harare Diocesan Chancellor tells The Church of England Newspaper that while Dr Kunonga may have quit the Province, the diocese did not.

The Chancellor, Robert Stumbles, stated last week no such resolution was adopted. Dr Kunonga’s purported secession resolution ‘appeared after Synod’ and had ‘not been on the agenda.’

Motion 8c dealt with ‘finalising the Diocesan Acts not severing relationships,’ he said, adding that even if the ‘off the Agenda resolution’ had been ‘lawfully passed by Synod, which is questionable, it has several flaws. Nowhere does it categorically empower the Bishop to sever relations with the Church of the Province of Central Africa.’

At no time did the Harare Synod give Dr Kunonga ‘absolute authority to drag the Diocese out of the Province,’ said Mr Stumbles.

Dr Kunonga’s actions were ‘tantamount to a schism’ Bishop Mwamba said last month. “The next logical step is for the Bishop of Harare to resign. The See of the Diocese of Harare will then be declared vacant and a new Bishop elected to replace Dr Kunonga.

“The schismatic group should not be under any illusion in thinking that they have title to the properties and various Trusts legally vested in the Diocese of Harare,” he said.

Lawyers have now asked him to surrender the diocese’s vehicles, bank accounts, books of account and real estate which were ‘held in trust by the Diocesan Trust for the benefit of the diocese of Harare but remain the property of our client, Church of the Province of Central Africa.’

Should Dr Kunonga fail to comply, the Province said it would pursue civil legal remedies.