Bishop attacks corrupt politicians: CEN 10.30.09 p 8. November 6, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Central Africa, Corruption.1 comment so far
| First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Bishop of Eastern Zambia has denounced political leaders who use public office to enrich themselves at the expense of their country. In a sermon preached at an ordination at St Luke’s Cathedral in Msoro on Oct 18, the Rt Rev William Mchombo warned that “politics, instead of being a tool to serve others has been reduced to a level where it is seen as a quick step from rugs to riches.” |
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“Some people even go to the extent of peddling lies — like building bridges where there are no rivers — and using vulgar language or purely tribal remarks in order to win votes for political office,” he said.
The bishop’s remarks come amidst growing civic unrest with the government of President Rupiah Banda’s decision not to pursue corruption charges against former President Frederick Chiluba. On Oct 2 the Bishop of Central Zambia, the Rt Rev Derek Kamukwamba called for national protests in response to the government’s decision. For democracy and the rule of law to be preserved it was necessary the appeals process “be exhausted and there should be no shortcuts,” Bishop Kamukwamba said.
The divide between the rich and poor in Zambia had widened in recent years, Bishop Mchombo said, such that we “live in a world today where a few people swim in riches and the majority drown in poverty, pollution, disease and violence.”
Small steps such as the maintenance of roads would do more for the people of the Central African country than grandiose projects. “A subsistence farmer cannot access the market owing to deplorable roads,” the bishop said, and “at the end of the day, the produce is sold to briefcase buyers.” In its leader of Oct 19, the Zambia Post endorsed the bishop’s call for clean government, stating that “it is true that most of our people are seeking political leadership positions as a stepping stone to government resources, to enriching themselves.”
“Elections in this country are no longer generally seen as a competition to serve,” the newspaper said. “They are increasingly becoming a competition for financial survival.”
Anger over former president’s acquital: CEN 10.16.09 p 8. October 22, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Central Africa, Corruption.add a comment
| First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Church leaders in Zambia have denounced their government’s decision not to pursue an appeal against the acquittal of former President Frederick Chiluba on charges of public corruption. The Bishop of Central Zambia, the Rt Rev Derek Kamukwamba, has urged Zambians to lend their voices to a national protest campaign mounted by civil and religious groups that calls on the government of President Rupert Banda to appeal the verdict. For democracy and the rule of law to be preserved it was necessary the appeals process “be exhausted and there should be no shortcuts,” Bishop Kamukwamba told the Zambia Post on Oct 2. “We need to move forward until we reach the last stage to the highest court.” |
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On Aug 17 a criminal court acquitted Mr Chiluba of corruption charges, finding that the government had not proven its case that the money that financed the diminutive president’s lavish lifestyle was stolen from state coffers.
The ruling came in sharp contrast to the verdict of a 2007 civil trial in London, where a court ordered the five-foot-tall president to repay £23 million to the Zambian government. Evidence presented in the London trial included testimony the former president spent more than £300,000 at one tailor, paying his bills with suitcases filled with cash.
In his summing up in 2007, Mr Justice Peter Smith said Mr Chiluba should be “ashamed” for having abused his office. However, the Zambian court held that Mr Chiluba’s London bank account held millions of pounds in gifts for the former president, and that there was no convincing evidence the money had been diverted from the state treasury.
A former bus conductor, Mr Chiluba was elected president in 1991, defeating Kenneth Kaunda the country’s independence leader, in one of Africa’s first multi-party elections. After leaving office in 2001, his handpicked successor, Levy Mwanawasa, with British backing began an anti-corruption drive that eventually led to the stripping of Mr Chiluba’s presidential immunity from prosecution.
On Aug 27, 2009 the director of the country’s anti-corruption task force Maxwell Nkole was sacked after he urged the government of President Banda not to interfere in with prosecutor’s plans to launch an appeal. Although Mr Chiluba was acquitted, his co-defendants were found guilty of corruption. The following day the government blocked prosecutors from pursuing an appeal.
The decision not to pursue Mr. Chiluba prompted harsh comments from the head of Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID)’s Zambia office, Mike Hammond. He told government leaders they should “to continue to be clear that you are ready to confront corruption no matter who is involved and that the policy of zero tolerance means just that.”
The general secretary of the Council of Churches of Zambia Susan Matale, said: “We’re totally confused and taken aback about the withdrawal of the appeal… the state should let the due process of the law go all the way to its logical conclusion.”
Last week Bishop Kamukwamba said that blocking the appeal raised questions about the government’s motives. “The desire is that the only institution that can clear the air should be allowed to do so,” he said.
The DFID has given more than £1 million to fund Zambia’s Task Force on Corruption, whose mandate was to investigate public corruption in the Chiluba administration.
Malawi elections delayed again over court appeal: CEN 10.02.09 p 6. October 7, 2009
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| First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Court of Confirmation of the Church of the Province of Central Africa has delayed approving the election of the bishops of Lake Malawi and Northern Malawi after a high court injunction halted the proceedings. A lay coalition in Lake Malawi has accused its new bishop of moral turpitude and has asked the court to block his election, while charges of canonical irregularities have been laid at the door of the election of the Bishop of Northern Malawi. |
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On Sept 22 the court met in Lilongwe, Malawi to confirm the Aug 1 elections of the Rev Leslie Mtekateka as Bishop of Northern Malawi, and the Ven Francis Kaulanda, Bishop of Lake Malawi.
Rector of St Timothy’s, Chitipa, Fr Mtekateka was the sole candidate on the ballot in Northern Malawi to succeed the Rt Rev Christopher Boyle, who has returned to England to serve as Assistant Bishop of Leicester. Fr Metekateka is the son of the Rt Rev Josiah Mtekateka, the first African bishop of Malawi, consecrated in 1965 as Suffragan Bishop of Nyasaland, and in 1971 as the first Bishop of Lake Malawi.
Four years after its last bishop died, the Diocese of Lake Malawi elected the Archdeacon of Lilongwe, the Ven Francis Kaulanda as its bishop. In 2007 the election of London vicar the Rev Nicholas Henderson as bishop of the diocese was rejected by the provincial court, which alleged Fr Henderson held unsound theological views.
In August, a petition bearing the names of 150 members drawn from 19 of the 33 parishes of the Diocese of Lake Malawi was published on the Internet by a UK-based church group, Anglican-Information. The Aug 17 petition accused Archdeacon Kaulanda incompetence and immorality, alleging the archdeacon had misappropriated funds for as USPG project while he was Archdeacon of Nkhota-kota. A copy of the petition was lodged with the registrar of the Province Anglican-Information reported.
At the Court of Confirmation, one of the leaders of the petition drive, Charles Wemba of Lingadzi parish, served the court with an injunction dated Sept 22 issued by the High Court in Lilongwe, barring the CPCA from proceeding with the confirmation of bishop-elect Kaulanda. On Sept 24 the Dean of the CPCA Bishop Albert Chama of Northern Zambia released a statement summarizing the proceedings, noting the judge’s order barred the CPCA from confirming the election of Bishop-elect Kaulanda “until the objections raised by the plaintiffs are sufficiently disposed of in Open Court.”
Bishop Chama wrote that the court offered Mr Wemba the opportunity to speak to his objections to the election of Bishop-elect Kaulanda, but after conferring with legal counsel, Mr Wemba declined to speak arguing that “to ignore the injunction was contempt of court.”
After deliberation, the court dismissed the written objections and held that if Mr Wemba had “failed to take the opportunity to give evidence in an Open Court and that nevertheless the written objections were placed before the Court of Confirmation and sufficiently disposed of, then this Court confirms the election of Francis Kaulanda as the duly elected Bishop of Lake Malawi.” However, it noted that if the “High Court of Malawi disagrees” with this decision, the “Court of Confirmation hereby postpones the matter indefinitely while reserving its rights in every respect relating to this matter.”
The confirmation of the election of the Bishop of Northern Malawi was also postponed as those lodging their objections “were unable to appear before the Court.”
The Court of Confirmation for Northern Malawi has been rescheduled for Nov 14 at St Mark’s Church in Mzuzu.
Ncube says he is receiving death threats: CEN 9.11.09 p 6. September 20, 2009
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Democracy activist and former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo Pius Ncube reports that he is under threat of death from agents of the regime of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe.
In a letter published Sept 2 in the South African Catholic weekly the Southern Cross, Archbishop Ncube states that his telephone and fax lines are being tapped, his mail intercepted and that he is under surveillance by the police for his criticism of the Mugabe regime’s human rights violations.
Forced to resign in 2007 after admitting to having had an affair with a married woman, Archbishop Ncube had been the country’s leading human rights activist.
In his letter to the Southern Cross, Archbishop Ncube stated he had been the intended victim of a car bombing. While travelling abroad in 2008, the government “made an arrangement to kill me,” he wrote.
“They planted a bomb in my car.” However, the archbishop was out of the country and a fellow priest borrowed his car. Approximately 12 miles outside Bulawayo the priest noticed he was being followed by two cars.
Archbishop Ncube wrote that government agents “detonated a bomb” placed under the passenger’s side of the car and it “car swerved and fell into the ditch.”
“Had the bomb been directed to the driver, this priest would have died instantly,” the archbishop said.
The following cars raced passed the scene of the accident, but a “third car, driven by a Chinese man, stopped nearby,” Archbishop Ncube wrote, adding the Chinese man began to take photos of the scene.
“The priest asked why he did not help him rather than photograph him, since he was injured,” he wrote, adding the Chinese man “nervously scurried away and drove off fast,” leaving the injured priest by the roadside.
“My attitude is that the government of Zimbabwe has no right to hound me and get me out of Zimbabwe,” the former archbishop said. So far, “in compliance with the suggestions from the Vatican,” Archbishop Ncube said he had been silent.
However, “I do not agree with quiet diplomacy when people are suffering,” he said as those harassing him “are not more powerful than God and our spiritual mother Mary.”
“I ask the people of God to help me by their prayers for my protection,” Archbishop Ncube wrote, saying he will “continue to pray for the delivery of Africa from tyranny.”
Concern over new charity law in Zambia: CEN 9.04.09 p 8. September 8, 2009
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| First published in The Church of England Newspaper.
Church and civil society leaders in Zambia have protested against last week’s signing of the Non-Governmental Organisations Bill by President Rupiah Banda and have vowed to mount a court challenge to the new laws that regulate the activities of the nation’s charitable organizations. Passed in mid-August by the Central African country’s National Assembly and signed into law last week by President Banda, the bill calls for the “the registration and co-ordination of NGOs, to regulate the work, and the area of work, of NGOs operating in Zambia.” |
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NGOs are now required to provide to the government yearly reports on their activities, sources of income, bank balances, and the incomes and personal wealth of their officers. A 16-member government board will oversee the activities of NGOs and “provide policy guidelines to NGOs for harmonizing their activities to the national development plan of Zambia.”
Failure to abide by the registration rules or the new “code of conduct” would permit the government to shut down an NGO.
Finn Petersen of the Danish NGO, MS Zambia Action Aid told the IRIN news service the bill would likely cause some foreign NGOs to pull out of Zambia, and close small local agencies unable to comply with the regulatory burdens imposed by the new laws.
“The bill is rather restrictive than facilitative in championing the development agenda,” he said, and “imposes serious restraints on the work and functioning of the NGOs, which will ultimately be detrimental to Zambian society as a whole and to development work in particular.”
Parliament declined to endorse a similar bill in 2007, in the wake of protests from the country’s Roman Catholic Church, opposition leaders and NGOs. Sources in Zambia tell The Church of England Newspaper the government’s latest push to enact an NGO bill may be driven by its growing battle with the Roman Catholic Church.
Catholic leaders have supported the NGO protests and have long opposed the expansion of state oversight of church-run hospitals and schools — and under the terms of the new NGO law, many church-run charities would now fall under direct government supervision.
The Catholic Church has also been at loggerheads with the government over censorship. On July 18 the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Zambia released a statement calling on the government to “clamp down on violence against the media” and turn its energies from fighting the opposition to tackling corruption, improving health care, responding to widespread poverty, and addressing the nation’s crumbling system of roads and utilities.
Government ministers have responded by accusing the church of meddling in political affairs, and of giving their tacit support to the opposition. The Zambia Anglican Church, however, has called for church and state leaders to talk through their differences. In an Aug 27 interview with the Times of Lusaka, the general secretary of the ZAC, the Rev Rogers Banda said church and state served the same constituencies.
“We, the Church and the Government need to sit down and talk every time we have differences,” Fr Banda said. “We should not attack each other because we have the same objective, to serve our people,” he said.
From new priest to bishop in just 17 days: CEN 8.14.09 p 7. August 16, 2009
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Seventeen days after being ordained to the priesthood by the Bishop of Kensington, the curate of the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Hampton of the Diocese of London has been elected Bishop of Manicaland.
On July 24 the electoral synod of the Zimbabwe diocese elected as bishop the Rev. Dr. Julius Makoni to succeed his deposed processor the Rt. Rev. Elson Jakazi. Dr. Makoni’s election must now go the House of Bishops of the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) for confirmation.
An ally of former Harare Bishop, on Sept 23, 2007 Bishop Jakazi joined Dr. Nolbert Kunonga in writing to Archbishop Bernard Malango saying their dioceses had withdrawn from Central Africa in protest to what they alleged was a pro-gay bias in the Province.
The dean of Central Africa, Bishop Albert Chama of Northern Zambia responded that it “was impossible for them to withdraw the dioceses” and on Oct 19, 2007 the Central African bishops declared the two “were no longer bishops” of the CPCA.
In April 2008 the former Bishop of Harare, the Rt. Rev. Peter Hatendi was appointed interim bishop of Manicaland. However, Bishop Jakazi last year retracted his declaration of independence from the CPCA and had sought to block the election of a new bishop for the diocese, claiming he remained the rightful bishop. Litigation is currently underway between the CPCA and Bishop Jakazi over the trusteeship of the Manicaland church properties.
Dr. Makoni was one of Zimbabwe’s leading bankers until he fled to England in 2004, after the Mugabe regime threatened to arrest him over charges of currency manipulation. Émigré newspapers at the time dismissed the charges as being motivated by political and tribal jealousies, and the government eventually dropped all charges.
Educated at St Ignatius College in Harare, Dr. Makoni earned a BA and PhD in finance from Cambridge University and an MBA from London University. He worked in the City of London for Morgan Grenfell followed by eight years at the World Bank and three years at Bankers Trust before he formed his own bank, NMB Bank which was listed on the London and Zimbabwe stock exchanges.
After fleeing Zimbabwe in 2004, Dr. Makoni studied for holy orders at Westcott House and was ordained a deacon in 2008 by the Bishop of Southwark on behalf of the Bishop Harare, and was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Paul Williams on July 9.
Dr. Makoni is the son-in-law of Bishop Hatendi, and his father, the Rev. Alban Makoni, was a priest of the Dioceses of Manicaland and Mashonaland.
In 2002, death threats were made by supporters of Dr. Kunonga against Dr. Makoni’s wife, Pauline. A member of the chapter of the Cathedral of St Mary and All Saints in Harare, Mrs. Makoni had opposed Dr. Kunonga’s usurpation of authority within the diocese.
Malawi ends missionary era with first indigenous bishops: CEN 8.05.09 August 5, 2009
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Indigenous clergy have been elected to the episcopate in Lake Malawi and Northern Malawi this week, ending the era of missionary bishops from Britain and the United States leading the church in Central Africa.
The Aug 1 elections of the Rev. Leslie Mtekateka as bishop-elect of Northern Malawi, and the Ven. Francis Kaulanda as bishop-elect of Lake Malawi permits the province to elect a new archbishop and ends a 150 year tradition of foreign bishops—begun by the Universities Mission to Central Africa of selecting British and American priests to serve as bishops for one of the poorest regions in Africa.
Rector of St Timothy’s, Chitipa, Fr. Mtekateka was the sole candidate on the ballot in Northern Malawi to succeed the Rt. Rev. Christopher Boyle, who has returned to England to serve as Assistant Bishop of Leicester. Fr. Metekateka is the son of the Rt. Rev. Josiah Mtekateka, the first African bishop of Malawi, consecrated in 1965 as Suffragan Bishop of Nyasaland, and in 1971 as the first Bishop of Lake Malawi.
Last month, the Rev. J. Scott Wilson, SSC of the Diocese of Fort Worth withdraw as sole candidate in Northern Malawi, prompting the diocese to conduct an abbreviated internal search for a new candidate. Leaders of the House of Bishops had urged the dioceses to look within Malawi for its new bishops, however this call to Africanize the episcopate had been met with some resistance.
Four years after its last bishop died, on Saturday the Diocese of Lake Malawi elected the Archdeacon of Lilongwe, the Ven. Francis Kaulanda as bishop. In 2007 the election of London vicar the Rev. Nicholas Henderson as bishop of the diocese was rejected by the provincial House of Bishops, which found Fr. Henderson’s theological views unsound.
As chairman of MicroLoan Foundation Malawi, Archdeacon Kaulanda has been active in bringing microfinance to Central Africa. Pioneered by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, microfinance offers small loans to the poor to help them engage in entrepreneurial enterprises to build the economy of rural and deprived urban areas through self-help and self-improvement.
Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper’s Religious Intelligence section.
Former Bishop of Harare given ultimatum: CEN 7.31.09 p 6. August 3, 2009
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The Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA) will give Dr. Nolbert Kunonga his day in court, but he must first return control over the assets of the Diocese of Harare to the province, the deputy chancellor of the CPCA said last week.
The offer of a church trial from Chancellor Robert Stumbles is the latest development in the o-going saga of the controversial former Bishop of Harare, who last week mounted a failed legal challenge to block the consecration of his successor.
On July 26, the Rt. Rev. Chad Gandiya was consecrated Bishop of Harare before a congregation of 10,000 gathered at the city’s Sports Centre. Dr. Gandiya was then enthroned at the Cathedral Church of St Mary & All Saints in a ceremony led by the Dean of the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA), Bishop Albert Chama of Northern Zambia and 12 other bishops.
However High Court Judge Ben Hlatshwayo blocked the installation, granting an injunction filed by Dr. Kunonga on behalf of the “Diocesan Trustees for the Diocese of Harare”, which claimed the CPCA was acting in bad faith by proceeding with the consecration.
“I am still the Bishop of Harare,” Dr. Kunonga claimed in the pleading.
Justice Hlatshwayo held the CPCA had not lawfully deposed Dr. Kunonga, writing that the controversial bishop had to “be charged first, tried and removed from office if there is anything against him before another bishop is ordained. Even divorcing a wife has certain procedures that are taken,” the judge ruled.
The Zimbabwe Supreme Court last week overturned the ruling after an emergency appeal was lodged by the CPCA. The Supreme Court ordered that the status quo be restored, with the two factions sharing the use of church properties until litigation over their ownership is concluded.
In a paper outlining the history of the Kunonga schism released on July 23, the Deputy Chancellor of the CPCA, Robert Stumbles reported the split began at the Aug 4, 2007 meeting of the Harare synod.
One of the Notices of Motion presented stated, “the Diocese of Harare does not recognise homosexuality as an acceptable Christian norm and hence does not recognise marriages from such relationships.” Mr. Stumbles noted that such a statement was unremarkable as it had been the formal “stance of the CPCA” on the issue since 1969.
However, on the floor of synod, the motion was amended by supporters of Dr Kunonga into “something unrecognizable and forced this through a somewhat stunned Synod,” Mr. Stumbles said, which the bishop’s supporters believed gave him the authority to “sever Diocesan links with the CPCA.”
On Sept 21, 2007 Dr. Kunonga informed the diocese “we are withdrawing from the Church of the Province of Central Africa,” and at an Extraordinary Synod held on Oct 20 made a “unilateral declaration of independence,” from the CPCA.
Dr. Kunonga formed the “Anglican Church of Zimbabwe” on March 15, 2008, claiming the CPCA was insufficiently firm on the question of homosexuality—a charge consistently denied by the province, which held Dr. Kunonga was engaged in a power grab with the tacit approval of allies within the Mugabe regime.
The province responded by appointing the retired Bishop of Manicaland, Dr. Sebastian Bakare interim bishop of the diocese, and excommunicated Dr. Kunonga after he created the Anglican Church of Zimbabwe.
Litigation over the control of parish properties ensued and the Harare High Court ordered that until it was resolved the two factions share usage of the properties. However, Dr. Kunonga ignored the court’s order, and with the backing of the police mounted a campaign of violent intimidation against supporters of Dr. Bakare.
The creation of a coalition government this year, however, saw an end to active government support for Dr. Kunonga. On March 4, 2009 the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa wrote to President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai saying they “disapproved of the actions of Dr Kunonga,” did not “recognise the status” of the breakaway bishop and asked the state to oversee the “full restoration of Anglican property” in Harare to the CPCA.
If he admits that he “erred in trying to withdraw the Diocese from the CPCA,” restores and accounts for the church’s assets, and withdraws “all court actions”, the House of Bishops of the CPCA “will convene to determine what steps should be taken by it concerning Dr. Kunonga,” Mr. Stumbles said.
Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper’s Religious Intelligence section.
No candidate for Bishop of Northern Malawi: CEN 7.31.09 p 5. July 31, 2009
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The sole candidate standing for election as Bishop of the Diocese of Northern Malawi has withdrawn from the Aug 1 election.
However, suggestions that the Very Rev. J. Scott Wilson, SSC of the Diocese of Forth Worth withdrew from the election after questions were raised about his being a member of the breakaway diocese are unfounded, The Church of England Newspaper has learned.
On July 22 the Daily Telegraph blogger Damien Thompson published an extract of an email he received from Anglican Information—a pressure group associated with the one-time bishop-elect of Lake Malawi, Ealing vicar the Rev. Nicholas Henderson.
Anglican Information claimed that Fr. Wilson, “formerly of Fort Worth diocese in the Episcopal Church of the United States has withdrawn his candidacy. Although he was runner-up to former Bishop Christopher Boyle (now retired to England) Wilson has left the Episcopal Church and actively joined a new breakaway faction in the United States known as ACNA (Anglican Church of North America). This has a very doubtful status in the Anglican Communion or with Canterbury. Bishop Trevor Mwamba of Botswana pointed out only last week that Wilson would not be able to subscribe to Canon 6 of the Provincial Canons as he is not in a Province in communion with Canterbury.”
On July 9 the Dean of the Church of the Province of Central Africa confirmed to CEN that Fr. Wilson was the sole candidate on the ballot in Northern Malawi. However, upon his return to Texas after a final visit in June to the diocese before the election, Fr. Wilson decided to stand down.
On July 27 Fr. Wilson told CEN that after prayerful consideration he did not believe he was called to be the bishop of the central African diocese. “I was not at peace” about this, he explained, adding he wrote to the vicar general of the diocese, the Rev. James Chifisi upon his return to Texas.
However, “at no time” was the question of his membership in the ACNA ever raised “by anyone connected” to the election, and it played no part in his decision to withdraw.
A spokesman for the Diocese of Fort Worth challenged the assertion that its clergy were not in communion with Canterbury, noting they were bona fide members of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, a status affirmed by the February primates meeting in Alexandria.
Although Fr. Wilson has withdrawn, the vicar general reports the election will go forward with a local candidate likely to be put forward for consideration.
The Diocese of Lake Malawi will also elect a bishop on Aug 1, completing the ranks of the provinces House of Bishops for the first time since 2005. After the two Malawi sees are filled, the province will then be able to elect a new archbishop to succeed Archbishop Bernard Malango—who stepped down in 2007. The Central African canons require a full House of Bishops to elect a new archbishop.
New bid to elect bishop in Central Africa: CEN 7.10.09 p 6. July 20, 2009
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The House of Bishops of the Church of the Province of Central Africa has scheduled episcopal elections for Aug 1 for the Dioceses of Lake Malawi and Northern Malawi.
Lake Malawi has been without a bishop since the death of Bishop Peter Nyanja in 2005. On July 29, 2005 the Vicar of Ealing the Rev. Nicholas Henderson was elected bishop of the rural Central African diocese. However, the election was challenged over procedural irregularities and on the grounds that his theological views evidenced by his onetime leadership of the Modern Church Peoples’ Union made him unfit for office. A court of confirmation led by Archbishop Bernard Malango in November of that year declined to affirm his election.
In 2007 the House of Bishops rejected an appeal lodged by supporters of Fr. Henderson and ordered a new election. However the Elective Assembly was prorogued on Feb 5, 2008 after a court issued an injunction on behalf of the “House of Laity of the Diocese of Lake Malawi” who charged that the required three month notice had not been met.
The names of the candidates for Lake Malawi have not yet been released, but Fr. Henderson is understood not to be under consideration.
Only one candidate is presently on the ballot for election as Bishop of Northern Malawi to succeed the Rt. Rev. Christopher Boyle, who was named Assistant Bishop of Leicester in March. The Very Rev. J. Scott Wilson, SSC, rector of All Saints Church in Weatherford, Texas in the Diocese of Forth Worth has extensive contacts with the diocese and was runner up to Bishop Boyle in the last election in 2001.
News of the new elections was released by the province after the consecration of Bishop Brighton Malasa as Bishop of Upper Shire on June 7 at Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral in Mangochi on June 7.
The President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika urged the new bishop to be faithful to his office and asked all Malawians to “care, support and love one another so as to bring hope to those who have lost it in this life.”
Zimbabwe appeal raises £300,000: CEN 5.21.09 May 21, 2009
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| The Archbishops’ Zimbabwe appeal has raised almost £300,000 to support church programmes providing food and medical assistance to the needy in the Central African nation.
In a statement released on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, a spokesman for Lambeth Palace said £292,330 had been donated to the fund administered by the USPG Anglicans in Mission. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Archbishop of Cantebury’s adviser is elected as the new Bishop of Harare: CEN 5.07.09 p 6. May 12, 2009
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The Rev Canon Chad Gandiya, the USPG’s Africa desk officer, has been elected bishop of the troubled Diocese of Harare.
Originally scheduled for April 25, the election had been postponed to May 2 to allow the Dean of the Church of the Province of Central Africa (CPCA), Bishop Albert Chama of Northern Zambia to attend the meeting following a trip to the United States.
Sharply divided in the wake of the secession of its former bishop, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga, the CPCA appointed Dr. Sebastian Bakare interim bishop on Nov 7, 2007. Aided by the security services, Dr. Kunonga has kept control of the diocese’s properties, using force to drive out clergy and congregations that backed Dr. Bakare.
At its 2008 Diocesan Synod, the diocese began structural reforms to repair the damage left from the Kunonga era. In place of the closed system that critics charge had been susceptible to influence from the CIO—Zimbabwe’s secret police, the diocesan synod elected a six member search committee to screen nominations.
Five names were submitted to the 22-member Elective Assembly, comprised of 6 clergy and 6 lay electors chosen by the diocesan synod, Bishop Chama, and three bishops, three clergy and three lay electors chosen by the CPCA. At a meeting held May 2 at the Arundel School Chapel in Harare Canon Gandiya was elected bishop by secret ballot of the 22-member diocesan Elective Assembly.
A former Dean of Bishop Gaul Theological College, Canon Gandiya oversees the USPG’s Africa operations, and has been appointed by Dr. Rowan Williams to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pastoral Visitor team. The bishop-elect is scheduled to be consecrated on July 25.
Following Canon Gandiya’s election, Dr. Bakarare told reporters he had been appointed Bishop of Harare on a “caretaker basis. I was here on a caretaker basis. I was here because of Kunonga’s behaviour. I was a shepherd looking after its sheep.”
On May 4, Bishop Chama and the new bishop-elect and other church leaders met with Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, briefing the government leader on the situation with the Anglican Church, and to offer condolences for the recent death of his wife and nephew.
The bishops “used the opportunity for the Prime Minister to hear from the horse’s mouth what is happening in the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe where Kunonga and [Bishop] Jakazi are clinging to church property,” Bishop Chama told local reporters.
Bishop Elson Jakazi of Manicaland and Dr. Kunonga were excommunicated by the CPCA on May 16, 2008 for “withdrawing from the Province of Central Africa, forming another Church, and casting aside the Constitution and Canons of the Church of the Province of Central Africa.”
“It was a good opportunity to brief [the prime minister] especially on our two friends that have left the church,” Dr. Chama told Zimonline.
President says church and state must work together: CEN 5.04.09 May 4, 2009
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Church and state must work together to develop the moral and economic welfare of the nation, the President of Zambia told the 18th meeting of the Diocese of Lusaka synod last week
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Election of new Zimbabwe bishop postponed unexpectedly: CEN 5.01.09 p 8. April 30, 2009
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The April 25 election of a new bishop in succession to the Rt. Rev. Sebastian Bakare of the Diocese of Harare has been postponed, sources in Zimbabwe tell The Church of England Newspaper.
No explanation or new date for the cancelled election has been offered by the diocese or the Church of the Province of Central Africa. Four candidates had been put forward for election: the USPG’s Africa desk office, the Rev Canon Chad Gandiya; the vicar of Tattenhall, Cheshire the Rev. Lameck Mutate; the Archdeacon of Northern Botswana, Dr. Archford Musodza; and the vicar of Mbare parish in Harare, the Rev. Canon David Manyau.
The last election for a Bishop of Harare in 2001 was marred by the intervention of the CIO—Zimbabwe’s secret police, whom critics charged engineered the election of Dr. Nolbert Kunonga. From the start of his tumultuous episcopate, Dr. Kunonga was closely linked with the regime of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe. Members of the diocese accused Dr. Kunonga with soliciting the murder of clergy and lay opponents, theft and heresy. An ecclesiastical trial for his alleged crimes collapsed after witnesses declined to return to Zimbabwe in fear of their safety.
The Church of the Province of Central Africa excommunicated Dr. Kunonga after he attempted to pull the diocese out of the province, and on Nov 7, 2007 appointed the retired Bishop of Manicaland, Dr. Sebastian Bakare to serve as interim bishop. While losing almost all of the diocese’s members to Dr. Bakare, Dr. Kunonga was able to hold on to the parish properties as he maintained the backing of the ZRP, the Zimbabwe Republic Police, who refused to honor a court ruling that ordered Dr. Kunonga to share the properties.
However, the introduction of a power sharing agreement between the Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and the opposition MDC, removed Dr. Kunonga’s protectors from their control of the security services, and earlier this month the government ordered Dr. Kunonga to share the disputed church properties, and directed the ZRP not to interfere further in the split.
While the violence appears to be subsiding in Harare, tensions are still high in the diocese of Manicaland, home to Zimbabawe’s second breakaway bishop. On April 25 the government backed Harare Herald reported that a priest aligned with Bishop Elson Jakazi—who along with Dr. Kunonga was excommunicated on May 16, 2008 for “withdrawing from the Province of Central Africa, forming another Church, and casting aside the Constitution and Canons of the Church of the Province of Central Africa.”
The retired Bishop of Harare, Peter Hatendi was appointed by the province to be the interim bishop of Manicaland following Bishop Jakazi’s ouster. Litigation between the Province and Bishop Jakazi for control of the diocese’s properties is underway, but last week supporters of Bishop Jakazi claim a mob hired by the supporters of Bishop Hatendi, assaulted a Jakazi priest sat St Agnes Church in Chikanga.
Manicaland police Inspector Brian Makomeke told the Harare Herald, the “Rev Matikiti from the Bishop Jakazi faction, who is staying at St Agnes Church in Chikanga high-density suburb, was assaulted by a mob at the church on Sunday. The incident occurred at about 7am when a group of about 100 people” led by a priest loyal to the province attempted to worship.
“A misunderstanding ensued between the two factions, resulting in Rev Matikiti being assaulted,” the Manicaland police spokesman said, and nine men are being held in custody.
Harare bishops agree deal: CEN 4.17.09 p 8. April 22, 2009
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A deal has been reached between the battling bishops of Harare that has allowed Anglicans to return to their churches on Palm Sunday for the first time in almost a year.
On April 1, Home Affairs Co-Minister Giles Mutsekwa, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and his ZANU-PF counterpart, Home Affairs Co-Minister Kembo Mohadi, summoned the breakaway Bishop of Harare, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga and the bishop appointed by the Church of the Province of Central Africa, Dr. Sebastian Bakare to a meeting at government house to resolve the dispute between the two groups.
In 2008 a court order granted both Dr. Kunonga and Dr. Bakarer joint use of diocesan properties, pending the final adjudication of the dispute over their ownership. However, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), with the backing of leading elements of the ZANU-PF regime refused to honour the order, and have used force to bar Dr. Bakare’s supporters from worshipping in Harare’s churches.
The coalition MDC – ZANU-PF government formed in February, however, has seen a withdrawal of support from Dr. Kunonga by the ZRP, as the bishop’s allies in the government appear to have lost control of the security services.
On Palm Sunday, the ZRP ordered the Kunonga faction to share the church buildings, allowing both groups to hold services. Dr. Bakare told the government-backed Harare Herald, “Today we are happy that we have been allowed to use our buildings.
“I believe this has happened to all our churches. So far we have received confirmation from leaders at the Cathedral and St Andrews in Glen View that they had worshipped peacefully,” he told the Herald.
Zimbabwe bishops called to meeting: CEN 4.09.09 p 8. April 13, 2009
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Ministers from Zimbabwe’s new coalition government have called in the battling bishops of Harare for talks, and have promised an end to police attacks on Anglicans seeking to worship in their churches.
Speaking in Parliament on April 2, newly appointed Home Affairs Co-Minister Giles Mutsekwa, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) stated that he and his ZANU-PF counterpart, Home Affairs Co-Minister Kembo Mohadi, “had a chance to summon” former Bishop Nolbert Kunonga and Bishop Sebastian Bakare to government house for discussions.
The April 1 meeting with the government ministers marks a further decline in Dr. Kunonga’s hold over the diocese’s properties. The breakaway bishop, who was excommunicated in 2007 after he attempted to pull Harare out of the Church of the Province of Central Africa and create an Anglican Church of Zimbabwe, has been able to control the parish properties and assets only through the active interventions of the Mugabe regime.
The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has refused to enforce court orders granting Dr. Bakare’s supporters—almost all the diocese’s lay members—use of their churches pending a final adjudication, and through beatings and arrests have kept Dr. Kunonga in control. The statement in Parliament last week, however, marks a further decline in Dr. Kunonga’s fortunes as the coalition government seeks to reinstate the rule of law in Zimbabwe.
“The ministry, indeed Government, is worried there is this disagreement. It has involved the police that we are in charge of and the image of the police has been tarnished,” Mr. Mutsekwa said, according to an account published in the government backed Harare Herald.
The dispute has been referred to the Attorney-General’s Office for review, he said, but noted the police had been instructed to refrain from using force against parishioners.
The government’s statement that police will no longer use violence against Dr. Bakare’s supporters follows last month’s statement by ZRP Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, that he had never ordered his men to disobey the court orders granting both parties use of the buildings, or instructed his men to attack Anglicans.
A long time supporters of President Mugabe, Dr. Kunonga has been banned from travel to the EU or the US due to his complicity in the crimes of the regime. Sources in Harare tell The Church of England Newspaper, Dr. Kunonga’s political connections with Didymus Mutasa, who for the last five years served as the Mugabe regime’s Minister of State for National Security, Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement, and the number two man in ZANU-PF, have kept him in power.
However, when Zimbabwe’s new coalition government was formed in February, Mutasa lost the National Security portfolio and its control of the secret police, when he was named Minister of State for Presidential Affairs. The return of democracy and the rule of law will ultimately see off Dr. Kunonga, predict sources in Zimbabwe, but the Mugabe regime and ZANU-PF still are clinging to power and it remains to be seen if the coalition government will survive.
Election set for new Bishop of Harare: CEN 4.09.09 p 8. April 13, 2009
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The Diocese of Harare has set April 25 as the date of the election for a successor to its interim bishop Dr. Sebastian Bakare. Three of the four candidates come from outside the country, driven from Zimbabwe by its former bishop Dr. Nolbert Kunonga.
The Archdeacon of Northern Botswana, Dr. Archford Musodza; the priest-in-charge of St Alban’s Church in Tattenhall, Cheshire, Fr. Lameck Mutate; the Africa Desk Officer for the USPG, Canon Chad Gandiya; and the rector of Mbare parish, Harare, Canon David Manyau have been nominated to stand for election.
In 2001 Dr. Nolbert Kunonga was elected Bishop of Harare, in an election, critic’s charged, engineered by the CIO—Zimbabwe’s secret police. During his tumultuous tenure, Dr. Kunonga was accused of soliciting the murder of clergy and lay opponents within the diocese, and tied himself closely to the regime of strongman Robert Mugabe. An ecclesiastical trial for his alleged crimes collapsed after witnesses declined to return to Zimbabwe in fear of their safety.
The Church of the Province of Central Africa excommunicated Dr. Kunonga after he attempted to pull the diocese out of the province, and on Nov 7, 2007 appointed the retired Bishop of Manicaland, Dr. Sebastian Bakare to serve as interim bishop.
The slate of four candidates includes the former Dean of Bishop Gaul Theological College in Harare, Dr. Archford Musodza, who also served as a Lecturer at the College of the Transfiguration in South Africa. Driven from the diocese by Dr. Kunonga, the government backed Harare Herald last year denounced Dr. Musodza, saying he was a tool of foreign interests that sought to bring down the regime.
The former Archdeacon of Harare East and vicar of St Paul’s in Highfield, Harare, Fr. Mutate also ran afoul of Dr. Kunonga and the regime, and was granted asylum in the UK in 2005 where he serves as a vicar in the Diocese of Chester.
A former Dean of Bishop Gaul Theological College, Canon Gandiya oversees the USPG’s Africa operations, and last month was appointed by Dr. Rowan Williams to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Pastoral Visitor team.
A seminary classmate of former bishop Nolbert Kunonga, Canon Manyau worked with the bishop until Dr. Kunonga’s break with the Province of Central Africa. A canon of the Cathedral of St. Mary and All Saints in Harare, he serves as rector of Mbare within the diocese.
Bishops in the Province of Central Africa are elected by a 21 member elective assembly. Twelve of the members: six clergy and six lay, are drawn from the diocese, and nine from the province: three bishops, three clergy, and three lay members. A two-thirds majority is required to elect a bishop. If the assembly is unable to elect a bishop, it may delegate the appointment to the Episcopal Synod or to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Fight to reclaim churches in Harare: CEN 4.03.09 p 8. April 8, 2009
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Gun fire erupted at a Harare parish last Sunday, with police firing upon parishioners seeking to reclaim their churches from the former Bishop of Harare, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga.
According to the official government daily, The Harare Herald, confrontations between Anglicans loyal to the Bishop of Harare and a small faction loyal to Dr. Kunonga, but backed by the police, took place at eight suburban congregations. In Glen Norah, a township southwest of the city, police fired upon protesters and arrested seven, including two priests and the church warden.
The Herald said the police responded with violence only after having been attacked. Inspector James Sabau told the Herald the police were engaged in their duties, “patrolling different places to maintain law and order as usual targeting mostly the crime prone zones [when] some parishioners turned hostile towards them.”
At St Francis Church in Glen Norah, “some members of the church started throwing stones at the officers leading to the arrest of seven parishioners who were charged and paid deposit fines for criminal nuances. Police only used teargas when the rivals turned violent,” he said.
Last month Dr. Kunonga’s grip on the church in Harare began to slip, when Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Commissioner Augustine Chihuri publicly withdrew his support for the controversial bishop. Commissioner Chihuri signed an affidavit, stating he had never ordered the ZRP to defy a court order calling for Dr. Kunonga’s faction and the majority group loyal to Bishop Sebastian Bakare to share church properties.
Since 2007, the ZRP have locked out supporters of Bishop Bakare—estimated to be approximately 95 percent of the diocese—from parish churches, and have used violence to keep Dr. Kunonga in power.
However, following the publication of the Chihuri letter, Bishop Bakare asked Anglicans to return to their churches. On the first Sunday for Anglicans back in their churches for over a year, police interrupted a service led by Bishop Bakare at a parish in Mabvuku on March 15, demanding he withdraw. Bishop Bakare declined, and the police pulled back and let him continue the service.
The return of Anglicans to their churches has so far seen mixed results, with some police units backing Dr. Kunonga, while others have stood down—-a state of affairs that matches the ambiguous political atmosphere within Zimbabwe today, analysts note.
According to an interview given to independent journalist John Fernandes by the rector of Glen Norah, the Rev. Vincent Fenga, the congregation decided that “since our colleagues elsewhere had gone back, we should also do the same and start to use the church.”
However, “the police were not having any of that so problems erupted as church members started to tussle with the police,” Fr. Fenga said.
The ZRP’s attempts to clear the area with force were met with a shower of stones. The ZRP retaliated with teargas and gunfire, wounding one man and arresting seven, including Fr. Fenga and his curate.
After the arrest, members of the parish’s Mother’s Union marched to the police station where Fr. Fenga was held and spent the day singing hymns outside the building in protest to the arrest, Fernandes reported.
The ZRP’s continued support for Dr. Kunonga in defiance of a court order and last month’s statement by Commissioner Chijuri, has prompted a lawsuit by the Church of the Province of Central Africa calling for the law to be enforced.
Diocesan Registrar Michael Chingore told the Standard the church had “launched a contempt of court appeal against the police at the High Court,” he said. “The police have only been trying to stop our services instead of maintaining order.”
End in sight for Kunonga? CEN 3.20.09 p 8. March 20, 2009
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The end appears nigh for Dr. Nolbert Kunonga and his stranglehold on the Diocese of Harare, sources in Zimbabwe tell The Church of England Newspaper. Kept in power solely through the support of regime, “Mugabe’s bishop” appears to have lost the support of the security services.
On Sunday, Anglicans were able to worship unmolested inside some of their churches for over a year after the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Commissioner Augustine Chihuri publicly withdrew his support for Dr. Kunonga.
Following his split with the Church of the Province of Central Africa in 2007, Dr. Kunonga created the Anglican Church of Zimbabwe. The Province responded by deposing Dr. Kunonga and appointing retired Bishop Sebastian Bakare to the see. Litigation over the control over diocesan properties ensued and last year the Harare High Court issued an order directing Dr. Kunonga and Dr. Bakare to share the use of church facilities pending the outcome of litigation.
Support for Dr. Kunonga is almost non-existent among the lay members of the diocese, and is confined to a handful of family members and clergy supporters. However, he has had the backing of the Mugabe regime, and supported by the security services he has defied the court’s order to share the properties.
Anglicans attempting to worship inside their churches have been met with force, with arrests and beatings at the hands of the police have been reported across the diocese. However, in the wake of last month’s power sharing agreement between President Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and the opposition MDC led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, support for Dr. Kunonga appears to have softened in Harare’s corridors of power.
In a letter to his diocesan clergy sent earlier this month, Dr. Bakare reports that Police Commissioner Chihuri has signed an affidavit denying he ordered the ZRP to ignore the high court order. Dr. Bakare has urged his clergy and their congregations to return to their churches, and last Sunday led worship in one parish.
Sources in Zimbabwe tell CEN the security services entered the Sunday service while Dr. Bakare was presiding, but backed away from a confrontation. The Times’ correspondent in Harare reported that when confronted by the riot police—a special shock force used by the regime to quell dissent, Dr. Bakare stated, “If you want to attack me, I am in your hands.”
Confronted with the police commissioner’s affidavit and Dr. Bakare’s stand, the riot police backed down and the service continued.
Bishops’ Mugabe plea: CEN 3.13.09 p 5. March 13, 2009
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Dr. Kunonga
The Anglican Bishops of Central Africa have released a statement “cautiously” welcoming Zimbabwe’s national unity government, and have urged strongman Robert Mugabe to honor the accord and release all political prisoners.
In a pastoral letter released on March 1 following the consecration of the Bishop of Bulawayo—former Coventry vicar the Rt. Rev. Cleophas Lunga, the Central African bishops prayed that the coalition government of President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai “will faithfully commit themselves to the fulfilment and spirit of the objectives enshrined in the Global Agreement.”
The settlement comes “after a long period of political polarisation which created immense suffering of the people,” the bishops wrote, adding that the terms of the treaty remained unmet.
“We are concerned about the continued detention of some political and human rights activists which is indicative of business as usual contrary to the spirit and objectives of Global Agreement,” the bishops wrote. “The continued detention of the activists is not conducive to the spirit of reconciliation and to the promotion of peace and justice. Justice delayed is justice denied,” they said.
On March 4, US President Barack Obama voiced his skepticism of President Mugabe’s compliance with the treaty, and announced the US would maintain its sanctions against the leaders of the regime—which include the former Bishop of Harare, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga for another year.
A spokesman for the US State Department said his government did not “see a lifting of sanctions at this time as being particularly helpful, because we have not seen any change come out of the coalition government as far as the Mugabe side has concerned. We have not seen a release of political prisoners in as large numbers as there should be. We remain deeply troubled at ZANU-PF’s consistent lack of commitment to the power-sharing agreement, and much remains to be done to gain the confidence of the international community.”
For sanctions to end, Robert Mugabe must “release all political detainees and end politically directed violence and intimidation; repeal repressive legislation; open access for humanitarian groups and NGOs; and have a commitment to macroeconomic reform,” the US spokesman said on March 5.
International Community should “help Zimbabwe”: CEN 3.06.09 p 7. March 6, 2009
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Archbishop Thabo Makgoba
The Archbishop of Cape Town has urged the international community to come to the aid of Zimbabwe, arguing that although the coalition government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was not ideal, it represented a step forward in resolving the country’s humanitarian and economic crisis.
Speaking at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town on Feb 25, Archbishop Makgoba stated that despite the “reservations” many held about the viability of the coalition government, “it is right now the only hope which the people of Zimbabwe have, and we must do all we can to make it work.’
“The injustice, the oppression, the hunger, the deprivation they have suffered is hard for us to grasp,” he told the Ash Wednesday congregation. Zimbabwe’s needs are “desperate: the most basic medication for clinics and hospitals; money to pay for the marking of last year’s exam papers, let alone civil servants’ salaries.”
He appealed to “all South Africans” and the international community “to give generously in response to the pleas for assistance of Prime Minister Tsvangirai.” Pray for the people of Zimbabwe, Archbishop Makgoba said, and pray especially as “new circumstances with the power-sharing government unfold.”
The archbishop’s call for prayer for Zimbabwe followed upon the pastoral letter of the Southern African House of Bishops’ Feb 16-19 meeting in Modderpoort.
“We must pray for the country and its new government; for the right treatment of Zimbabweans in neighbouring countries and for fair treatment at the hands of police and officials, especially in South Africa,” the bishops said.
Treasury orders Kunonga assets frozen: CEN 2.27.09 p 6. March 2, 2009
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The Rt. Rev. Nolbert Kunonga
The Treasury has ordered British banks to freeze any funds or assets held by the former Bishop of Harare, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga.
On Jan 27, the government released a “Financial Sanctions Notification” stating that in conjunction with European Commission Regulation No 77/2009 “all funds or economic resources belonging” to 27 individuals and 36 corporations tied to the regime of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe “must be frozen.”
Number 13 on the list is Dr. Kunonga, whom the Treasury describes as a “self-appointed Anglican Bishop” whose “followers have been backed by the police in committing acts of violence.”
In 2002 the US State Department and the EU ordered a ban on Dr. Kunonga’s movements, forbidding his entry into Europe or the US. The 2009 Treasury circular stated that “no funds or economic resources are to be made available, directly or indirectly, to or for the benefit” of Dr. Kunonga or the list of banned regime supporters.
“Financial institutions and other bodies and persons in the UK are required to check whether they maintain any accounts or otherwise hold any funds or economic resources for the persons named and, if so, they should report to the Treasury details of all funds or economic resources that they have frozen in accordance with Article 6 of Regulation 314/2004,” the circular stated.
A long time ally of the regime, Dr. Kunonga is the only clergyman sanctioned by the EU or the US for his complicity with the crimes of the Mugabe regime. In a 2004 report the US State Department said that the Mugabe regime had “bypassed canonical law to install” Dr. Kunonga as Bishop of Harare and had rewarded him for his loyalty to the regime. “In October 2003, Kunonga seized a formerly white-owned farm ten miles from Harare and evicted fifty black workers to make way for his own staff.”
On Feb 12 Dr. Kunonga gave the invocation at the swearing in of the country’s new government. Reading from Ezekiel Chapter 37, Dr. Kunonga likened the fragile coalition of President Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and the opposition MDC led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to the “valley of dry bones.”
The coalition government was “the work of God to make Zimbabweans speak with one voice and govern and control their own destiny,” Dr. Kunonga told the small audience at Harare’s State House.
“Zimbabweans today are being called to create a situation that is tolerable and acceptable to us all,” Dr. Kunonga said to the new leaders in the service broadcast to the nation. “The leaders have no choice but to make things work. It’s time to bury the past and continue with what is progressive and beneficial to us all.”
Primates tell Mugabe to go: CEN 2.06.09 p 1. February 11, 2009
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The primates of the Anglican Communion have issued a plea for the international community to intervene in Zimbabwe, but have stopped short of backing Archbishop of York John Sentamu’s call for armed intervention.
On Feb 2 the leaders of the Anglican Communion held a closed door session on the situation in Zimbabwe and heard presentations from the Primate of Southern Africa, Archbishop Thabo Makogba and the Dean of Central Africa, Bishop Albert Chama. In a statement released the next day, the archbishops offered their prayers and love in a time of cholera and societal collapse to the embattled people of the Central African country, telling them that they had not been forgotten.
Yet the world must act, the archbishops said, and take steps to end the crisis “due directly to the deteriorating socio-political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.”
The regime should a “total disregard for life” and was responsible for the “systematic kidnap, torture and killing of the Zimbabwean people” they said. The primates had no faith that any power sharing agreement with President Mugabe would work and called upon him “to respect the outcome of the elections of 2008 and to step down. We call for the implementation of the rule of law and the restoration of democratic processes.”
The primates asked the Archbishop of Canterbury and Archbishop Ian Earnest of the Indian Ocean as chairman of the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) to appoint a representative to Zimbabwe on behalf of the Communion, “to exercise a ministry of presence and to show solidarity with the Zimbabwean people.” In 1985 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Robert Runcie appointed the Rt. Rev. Keith Sutton, Bishop of Lichfield as his envoy to South Africa to support the anti-apartheid campaign.
They asked CAPA and the All African Council of Churches to meet with Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, the head of the African Union, and urge Africa’s political leaders to take action to end the regime.
In a press conference held following the release of the statement, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town said that on March 31, 2008 the people of Zimbabwe spoke “loud and clear,” saying that Robert Mugabe “needs to step down.”
However, Archbishop Makgoba declined to endorse Archbishop John Sentamu’s Dec 7 call for armed intervention to end the regime. “In a situation of war, of high or low intensity” it was the poor not the powerful who suffered, he said.
The international community should “explore all available avenues before you through in the towel” and use force to effect regime change in Zimbabwe, Archbishop Makgoba said.
Archbishop Makgoba called for quick action as the potential for violence was high. “We are worried about the signs we see,” he said, adding that the regime had had a history of violence. “We know in Matabeleland how many people were killed,” he said, in reference to the 1983 massacres of tens of thousands of political and tribal opponents of Robert Mugabe by units of the Zimbabwean army.
Scenes from Alexandria: Central Africa February 7, 2009
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The Rt. Rev Albert Chama, Bishop of Northern Zambia and Dean of the Church of the Province of Central Africa. Photo take 2.05.09 at the Primates Meeting in Alexandria
Primates call for action on Zimbabwe: CEN 2.04.09 February 5, 2009
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The primates of the Anglican Communion have issued a plea for the international community to intervene in Zimbabwe, but have stopped short of backing Archbishop of York John Sentamu’s call for armed intervention.
On Feb 2 the leaders of the Anglican Communion held a closed-door session on the situation in Zimbabwe and heard presentations from the Primate of Southern Africa, Archbishop Thabo Makogba, and the Dean of Central Africa, Bishop Albert Chama. In a statement released the next day, the archbishops offered their prayers and love in a time of cholera and societal collapse to the embattled people of the Central African country, telling them that they had not been forgotten. Yet the world must act, the archbishops said, and take steps to end the crisis “due directly to the deteriorating socio-political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.” |
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South Africa urged to act on Zimbabwe: CEN 1.09.09 p 7. January 9, 2009
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(The Rt. Rev. Jo Seoka of Pretoria)
The Bishop of Pretoria has called upon the President of South Africa to consider armed intervention in Zimbabwe to remove Robert Mugabe from power in Zimbabwe.
On Jan 1, the Rt. Rev. Johannes Seoka challenged President Kgalema Motlanthe to “exercise his responsibility as the chair of Southern African Development Community, to mobilise SADC forces to go to Zimbabwe as peacemakers” to resolve the humanitarian crisis now.
The government had neither responded to the collapse of Zimbabwe nor to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into South Africa. “People continue to be detained without trial, and to die of diseases of impoverishment such as cholera,” the bishop said.
“As a spiritual leader and the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Pretoria, I challenge my own government first, to send a delegation on a fact-finding mission that will inform and empower us to act decisively to rescue the innocent nationals of Zimbabwe, both in their country” and in refugee camps in South Africa “where they are being treated to a fate worse than animals.”
In his Christmas letter to the Diocese of Harare, Bishop Sebastian Bakare urged Zimbabweans not to lose faith in the face of the “litany of challenges” confronting Zimbabwe: “Cholera, hunger, HIV/AIDs, lack of health care, homelessness, unemployment, poverty, corruption, kidnappings, callousness, harassment, you name it.”
The outbreak of Cholera, which as of year’s end had infected over 30,000 the UN reported was especially grim, Dr. Bakare said. “As I write, some families are nursing their relatives who are suffering from the effects of Cholera expecting them to die any time, others stay indoors unable to come out from their houses because of the unbearable stench of sewage flowing in front of
their doorsteps, while still others are burying their dead. We hear of a horrific case where one family lost 5 children in 36 hours.”
He said the cry that “God has abandoned us. The devil is in charge” had become a “common expression in Zimbabwe.” But the bishop reminded them that “the Lord does not fail his chosen.”
Citing Psalm 10, Dr. Bakare wrote the Lord will avenge the people of Zimbabwe and “break the power of the wicked and malicious. … Lord, you hear the desire of the people. You will incline your ear to the fullness of their heart to give justice to the orphans and oppressed, so that people are no longer driven in terror from the land.”
He urged the embattled people of Zimbabwe to have patience and to celebrate Christmas for the “Prince of Peace [is] bringing about justice and peace to an unjust world.”
Coventry vicar is new Bishop of Matabeleland: CEN 1.02.09 p 5. January 6, 2009
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A Coventry vicar has been appointed Bishop of Matabeleland. Meeting at St. John’s Cathedral in Bulawayo on Nov 8, the the Matabeleland diocesan synod elected as bishop the Rev. Cleophas Lunga, rector of the Caludon Team Ministry in Coventry.
Born in Bulawayo, Bishop-elect Lunga worked as a legal clerk before entering Bishop Gaul Theological College in Harare. Ordained deacon in 1993, and priest the following year, Bishop-elect Lunga served as an assistant at St John’s Cathedral and as diocesan youth minister before being appointed rector of the multi-racial parish of All Saints & St Modwen’s in Bulawayo in 1999.
In 2003 he emigrated to the UK taking up the post of team vicar of St Catherine’s in Stoke Aldermoor, then team rector of the Caludon group of parishes with responsibility for Wyken and Stoke Aldermoor. During his time in Coventry, Bishop-elect Lunga earned an MA degree at Coventry University.
“In Coventry I have been welcomed and very much loved. Encouraged to share my African heritage, I have been tremendously blessed by the experience I have gained here. I have learnt to listen to people’s stories with respect and work towards nurturing hope through love.,” the new bishop said.
“As we are praying during this process we are also looking forward to the possibility of returning to my other homeland and journeying with others who have a zeal for the Lord,” he said.
Dr. Christopher Cocksworth, the Bishop of Coventry welcomed the election saying Bishop-elect Lunga was “an excellent priest who has given a great deal to the Diocese of Coventry.”
“Although we are sorry to lose him, I know that he will have so much to contribute to the Diocese of Matabeleland. My prayers are with him and his family as they await the confirmation of his election and prepare for all that lies ahead,” Dr. Cocksworth said.
African bishop chosen a last: CEN 1.02.09 p 1. January 6, 2009
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Central Africa.2 comments
The deadlock over the appointment of a bishop for the Diocese of Upper Shire has been broken by the Central African House of Bishops. At their Dec 16 meeting the bishops appointed the diocese’s vicar-general to succeed Archbishop Bernard Malango as bishop of the central Malawi diocese. At 30 years of age, the Rev. Brighton Malasa will be the youngest bishop in the Anglican Communion.
The election in Upper Shire has been marred by political and racial wrangling since the Feb 16 the electoral synod deadlocked after six ballots. The two candidates, the Rev. Jeremy Sheehy, the former principal of St. Stephen’s House, Oxford and Canon Alinafe Kalemba, Dean of the Zomba Theological College split the vote after three other candidates, the Archdeacon of Bradford the Ven. David Lee, and the Rev. Steven Hart, rector of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Albany, New York withdrew their names at the start of the balloting as did the Rev. Howard Nasolo of Zomba.
Former provincial secretary Fr. Eston Pembamoyo told The Church of England Newspaper the “house was divided between those who said no to the mzungu [white man] and those who said no to the black man.” Under Central African canon law the diocese’s twelve electors and the Province’s nine electors must elect a candidate by a two-thirds majority.
“Those who said no to the black man said so because they thought he was being imposed on the people because he is from another diocese, and those who said no to the mzungu said so because they thought it was not time now to look to the West for the Gospel,” he told CEN.
Under Central African canon law if an electoral synod fails to elect a bishop, the appointment falls to the House of Bishops. However, a coalition of diocesan clergy filed suit against the Province to block the House of Bishops from appointing a new bishop, arguing the choice of the diocesan electors had been Fr. Sheehy, and that the province should honor that request.
On June 13 a Malawi high court judge lifted the injunction after finding the complaint had not been properly notarized. An appeal to the Malawi Supreme Court in Blantyre failed, opening the door for the House of Bishops to act last week at their biannual meeting in Lusaka.
A former chaplain to Archbishop Malango, Bishop-elect Malasa has served as vicar-general of the diocese since the archbishop’s retirement.
Archbishop of Canterbury condemns Zimbabwe ‘outrage’: CEN 12.12.08 December 14, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Archbishop of Canterbury, Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.add a comment
| Regional talks to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe have failed, the Archbishop of Cape Town said last week, and the “terrible deterioration, disease and despair we are seeing in Zimbabwe” requires Robert Mugabe go.
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba’s Nov 28 call is one of a series of statements made by church and state leaders for the Zimbabwe strongman to step down. On Dec 9 the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams told ReligiousIntelligence.com the situation in Zimbabwe was “now a complete humanitarian outrage, compounded by self-serving and self-deceiving pronouncements from those clinging to power.” Dr Williams said: “We are witnessing the breakdown of health care systems and water supply, on top of the ravages of cholera in many cities and towns. The continued state aggression towards civil society is unacceptable, most recently against the few doctors that remain in the country to serve an increasingly sick and desperate population. Outside pressure is more necessary than ever” to achieve change in Zimbabwe.” Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Praise for Zimbabwe bishop: CEN 11.13.08 November 13, 2008
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The Archbishop of Canterbury has added his voice to the chorus of praise for the Bishop of Harare, Dr. Sebastian Bakare, upon the occasion of his award of the Per Anger Prize from the Swedish government.
On Nov 10, Dr. Rowan Williams stated he wished to offer his “support and congratulations to Bishop Sebastian Bakare in receiving this award. Bishop Bakare is a deeply respected and courageous leader, who has spoken out not only against injustices in his community but also against corruption within his own church.”
The Harare bishop’s “continued integrity, for which he has placed himself at considerable personal risk, has brought hope to countless people in Zimbabwe and internationally,” the archbishop said.
Bishop Bakare said the situation in Zimbabwe was grim. “It is like a war, in the sense that there is total absence of peace.”
The political situation was fraught with danger, he added. He was sanguine about the prospects for success of the coalition government formed by President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. “People need to have a strong government to put the economic situation in a better position, not this wishy-washy kind of argument,” he said.
“People are crying, no food, no water, no medication,” Dr. Bakare told Stockholm’s TV4. “Some are displaced, children are not going to school. I think every aspect of our society you look at is crying.”
The divisions within Zimbabwe are also playing out against the backdrop of the Diocese of Harare, as reports of continued violence by supporters of former bishop Dr. Nolbert Kunonga against Anglicans loyal to Dr. Bakare come in. Sources in Harare report that last month a deaconess loyal to Dr. Bakare was assaulted by a Kunonga faction priest.
Deaconess Mbuya Kadenhe was assaulted by the Rev. Simon Makove, a priest in the Kunonga faction last month when Fr. Makove and a crowd of supporters entered St. Paul’s Highfield, outside of Harare. The Harare High Court had ordered Dr. Kunonga to share the church property with Dr. Bakare’s supporters, but the orders have so far been ignored with impunity by the Kunonga faction. A magistrate later fined Fr. Makove Z$20 for break of peace and assault.
On May 4, three members of St Paul’s Highfield were seriously injured by baton wielding riot police, who entered the church during Sunday services to drive out worshippers loyal to Dr. Bakare. The congregation at first refused to leave the church, singing “Gloria in Excelsis Deo.”
Fifty more riot police entered the building and began to drum their batons on the backs of the pews to drown out the hymn. When parishioners began to take photos of the police with their cellphones, the police charged and drove the congregation from the building.
Located in one of Harare’s oldest black suburban townships, St. Paul’s Highfield had at one time been a bastion of support for Dr. Kunonga. During the 2001 election for bishop, the rector of Highfield, the Rev. Godfrey Tawonezvi circulated a public letter accusing the leading candidate, the Archdeacon of Harare the Ven. Tim Neill of perpetuating racial injustice in the diocese, and wanting to become bishop in order to continue dominating blacks.
Following his election as Bishop of Harare, Dr. Kunonga appointed Fr. Tawonezvi Dean of St Mary & All Saints Cathedral in Harare, and Neill’s successor as Archdeacon of Harare. In 2002 Dean Tawonezvi removed memorial plaques and other monuments to Rhodesia’s war dead from the Cathedral. The cathedral chapter responded by passing two votes of “no confidence” in the new Dean.
In 2003 Dr. Kunonga appointed Fr. Tawonezvi bishop of the newly vacant see of Masvingo in southeastern Zimbabwe, Episcopal News Service reported at the time. However, Bishop Tawonezvi broke with his patron and refused to follow Dr. Kunonga out of the Province of Central Africa into the “Anglican Church of Zimbabwe” with Dr. Kunonga as its Archbishop, causing the government backed Harare Herald last year to attack Bishop Tawonezvi for being part of the “anti-Kunonga lobby” which sought to restore British rule.
Honour for Bishop Bakare: CEN 10.31.08 p 7. November 3, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.add a comment
| THE SWEDISH government has awarded the Bishop of Harare its Per Anger prize for his “moral courage” in leading the fight for a democratic Zimbabwe.
On Oct 28 the Forum för Levada Historia (Forum for Living History) of the Swedish Foreign Ministry announced Dr Bakare had been chosen to receive the award for his “committed work for human rights in a politically unstable Zimbabwe.” Inaugurated by the Swedish government in 2004 in memory of diplomat Per Anger, the prize winner is selected from those work “promotes democracy and humanitarian efforts, is characterized by active measures and initiative, works for no personal gain, takes great personal risks, displays great courage and is a role model for others.” Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper |
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Clergy are employees, says Botswana judge: CEN 10.24.08 p 9. October 24, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Central Africa, Ecclesiology.add a comment
Clergy are church employees and are subject to the protection of state labour and contract laws, a high court judge in Botswana has ruled. In a case brought by seven suspended priests, Judge Key Dingake held that the Diocese of Botswana must comply with its internal constitution as well as state law in clergy disciplinary proceedings and ordered Bishop Trevor Mwamba to restore them to office.
Last year, Bishop Mwamba suspended the seven priests, stopping their pay and ordering them to vacate their rectories, after they turned to former Harare bishop Dr. Nolbert Kunonga for aide.
The seven, ethnic Batswanas-the dominant tribal group in Botswana-had charged Bishop Mwamba, a native of Zambia, with favoring foreigners in church patronage appointments. On Aug 25, 2007 six of the seven priests, wrote to the Primate of Central Africa, Archbishop Bernard Malango, stating they had no confidence in Bishop Mwamba’s leadership.
They charged Bishop Mwamba with being profligate with church funds, and for having brought “shame” onto the diocese by appearing in a BBC film adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith’s 1998 best-seller, “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency,” which was filmed in Botswana. They also charged their bishop with backing the line on “homosexuality as propounded by the American Anglicans.”
Dr. Kunonga came to the aide of the seven priests at the 2007 provincial synod, denigrating Bishop Mwamba in a speech to the gather, while his surrogates in Harare attacked the bishop through the state controlled press.
However, when the Province removed Bishop Kunonga from office, Bishop Mwamba revoked the licences of the seven rebel priests prompting the lawsuit.
In testimony before the High Court in Gabarone in February, Bishop Mwamba stated diocesan canons granted him the authority to “grant, withhold, revoke or renew” a priest’s license “as he may see fit.” The seven had been engaged in “factionalism in association with a certain Dr Kunonga, who is a schismatic and not recognized in the Province and the Anglican Communion Worldwide,” he said.
However in his ruling, Judge Dingake held that the diocese had not complied with the government’s laws regulating charitable organizations nor its own constitution in suspending the seven priests. The judge further held that the bishop should have granted a hearing to the seven priests to respond to the charges leveled by Bishop Mwamba.
Judge Dingake rejected the argument proffered by the diocese’s lawyer that “because the church is a voluntary association, the principles of natural justice do not apply to it.” Voluntary associations were obligated to treat their members fairly by conforming to their constitutions.
The judge also rejected Bishop Mwamba’s third defense, saying that priests were church employees, not independent contractors employed at will.
“The decision by the bishop to withdraw and revoke applicants’ licenses to practice as priests of the Anglican Church is hereby set aside as being contrary to the Acts of Diocese of Botswana and or the Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Church,” Judge Dingake said.
No end in sight to Zimbabwe strife: CEN 10.17.08 p 6. October 17, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Politics, Zimbabwe.add a comment
The signing of a power sharing agreement last month between President Robert Mugabe and leaders of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe has not lessened the strife within the Diocese of Harare.
Editorials and opinion pieces published by the government backed Harare Herald have accused supporters of Bishop Sebastian Bakare and exiled members of the clergy of being stooges of the MDC party, and a stalking horse for the Church of England, which is accused of wanting to reclaim Harare as colonial missionary diocese.
While President Mugabe appears to have kept his hold on power, junior members of the government and the ruling ZANU-PF party have objected to the political deal, fearful that their positions will be undermined. While personal and political alliances within the murky world of ZANU-PF politics are unclear, it appears the former Bishop of Harare, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga—an ally of President Mugabe—has gone over to the rejectionist front.
The political controversies have not stopped Dr. Bakare—Dr. Kunonga’s Provincial appointed successor—from inaugurating a rebuilding campaign for the diocese. On Oct 26, Dr. Bakare will kick off the Nehemiah Festival, with a service at the Harare Showground, where he will confirm 1000 people. Bibles, Prayer Books, devotional materials and other church goods will be offered for sale to raise money to rebuild the diocese.
“Every Anglican in the Diocese of Harare has a role to play in the rebuilding of the church through donations in cash and or in kind,” Patrick Mahari, the Chairman of the Nehemiah Committee told The Zimbabwean.
The government remains hostile to Dr. Bakare, even though he has denied being a backer of either political party. On Sept 7 the state controlled press charged the former Dean of Bishop Gaul Theological College in Harare, the Ven. Archford Musodza of conniving with foreign powers and former members of the Ian Smith regime to overthrow the government and oust Dr. Kunonga.
Driven into exile, Dr. Musodza is currently archdeacon of Northern Botswana. The Herald charged Botswana was a “financial, diplomatic and propaganda rear-base from which to divide and destabilise Zimbabwe on behalf of the British and the North Americans.”
Dr. Musodza and the Diocese of Botswana were agents of Anglo-American foreign policy, the Herald said, and were circulating a “shooting list of Zimbabwean patriots.”
The government newspaper published excerpts from a letter alleged to have been written by Dr. Musodza to “one Christine” in Harare, stating that “once the old man, Mugabe is ousted,” that “will also be the end of (Dr. Kunonga).”
The Herald said the letter stated that once the MDC “takes the reins, then all former white farmers are assured of a return to their farms. The church will be restored and we can mobilise all Anglicans to now vote for a Bishop of Zimbabwe from Britain who is not polluted.”
“The British bishop will be mandated to return the Zimbabwean Church back to correct hands, the English Church with proper British ethos,” the letter allegedly stated.
Dr. Musodza was in league with the MDC as well as members of the former Selous Scouts, Rhodesia’s crack anti-terrorist squad that fought ZANU during the 1970’s, to bring down President Mugabe and Dr. Kunonga, the Herald charged.
The charges of treason leveled by the Herald were nonsensical “lies” Dr. Musodza told The Church of England Newspaper. “This is Kunonga’s way of fighting those whom he considers as his enemies,” he said.
While it was true that he had kept in touch with his former secretary at Marlborough parish in Harare, and continued to receive the parish magazine, his letters to her “never intimated that I was working and scheming to oust the regime” and the allegations fraudulent.
Dr. Musodza explained “I am one of those that Kunonga does not want to see,” and the forged letters were a preemptive strike launched by controversial former bishop to discredit the opposition. However, the people of Harare will not be intimidated by Dr. Kunonga and his “stooges,” he said.
“Despite the beatings and the accusations of being opposition supporters, despite being pushed out of the churches which they built using their own hard earned resources, despite being maimed, they have remained resolute and committed to the orthodox faith as they received it,” he said.
Yet, the future was bright. “Although people have been barred from using their churches, and are using other people’s churches, as well as some parishioner’s homesteads, the faith remains strong and the hope of returning to their official places of worship is looming on the horizon,” Dr. Musodza said.
Education chief sacked after fraud investigation: CEN 9.29.08 September 29, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Central Africa, Education.add a comment
| The education secretary of a Central African diocese has been dismissed after an audit found he had stolen funds donated by school children in the Diocese of Birmingham to support Anglican schools and hospitals in Malawi.
The standing committee of the Diocese of Upper Shire last week dismissed its education secretary, Richard Bushili, after an audit revealed he had embezzled approximately £3,700 in funds donated to support the diocese’s church school pupils. The diocesan administrator, Richard Msosa told the Nyasa Times that Bushili had also misappropriated school equipment, text books, sports equipment and other goods donated by Church of England schools in Birmingham. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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The Bishop of Botswana September 27, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Album (Photos), Church of the Province of Central Africa, Lambeth 2008.add a comment
The Rt. Rev. Trevor Mwamba, Bishop of Botswana. Photo taken July 18 at the 2008 Lambeth Conference.
Zimbabwe snub to clergy loyal to Kunonga: CEN 8.22.08 p 5. August 25, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.add a comment
| The Vice President of Zimbabwe has called upon clergy loyal to the former bishop of Harare, Dr Nolbert Kunonga (pictured) to reconcile with the Anglican Communion.
Speaking at a memorial service for his late son on Aug 6, Joseph Msika chastised two Anglican clergy officiating at the service, members of the faction backing ousted bishop Dr Nolbert Kunonga, for the divisions within the diocese. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Caution urged over Zimbabwe deal: CEN 7.25.08 p 1. July 26, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Lambeth 2008, Politics, Zimbabwe.add a comment
| Canterbury: The agreement by President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara to form a power-sharing government that would bring and end to the political violence that has wracked Zimbabwe, has elicited words of caution from the Bishop of Harare, Dr Sebastian Bakare.
Speaking to the media at the 14th Lambeth Conference in Canterbury on July 22, Dr Bakare warned that Zimbabwe’s history did not bode well for the success of the Memorandum of Understanding signed on July 21 by President Mugabe and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leaders brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki. A similar agreement signed by President Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo to end the civil war in Matabeleland between Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and Nkomo’s ZAPU party, which made Nkomo a member of the government in 1982, served to eliminate the last significant opposition to the regime. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Rebel Zimbabwe bishop claims support of Gafcon constituency: CEN 7.13.08 July 13, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, GAFCON, Zimbabwe.add a comment
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The former Bishop of Harare , Dr Nolbert Kunonga, has claimed the support of the Gafcon movement saying his schism from the Church of the Province of Central Africa was merely the opening shot in the Anglican Communion’s war over homosexuality.
However, the African archbishops leading the Anglican renewal movement have distanced themselves from the controversial bishop, giving their support to the Province and its dean, Bishop Albert Chama of Northern Zambia. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Archbishop Tutu leads calls for African repudiation of Mugabe: CEN 7.04.08 p 8. July 7, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.2 comments
Former Archbishop of Capetown and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu has called upon the leaders of the African Union to repudiate Robert Mugabe.
Speaking to the BBC before the start of the June 30 AU meeting in Egypt, Archbishop Tutu urged African government leaders to stop in and resolve the civic and humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe.
Re-elected President on June 27 after his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai was forced to pull out of the race following the murders of at least 90 members of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party at the hand of thugs of the ruling ZANU-PF party and police loyal to the Zimbabwe strongman, Mugabe was hurriedly sworn in as president on June 29.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission asserted he had won 85% of the ballots cast—though its ability to report the outcome within days, rather than the months it took to issue the returns from the March elections—which independent observers widely credit Tsvangirai as having won, is seen as suspect.
On Saturday Prime Minister Gordon Brown rejected the legitimacy of the elections and said Britain would “work with international partners to find a way to close this sickening chapter that has cost so many lives.”
Leaders of the MDC are expected to travel to Egypt to present their case to the AU leaders. However, Tsvangirai will not be among them, as the government has refused to return his passport, effectively banning him from traveling abroad.
“If you were to have a unanimous voice, saying quite clearly to Mr Mugabe, ‘you are illegitimate and we will not recognise your administration in any shape or form,’ I think that would be a very, very powerful signal and would really strengthen the hand of the international community,” Archbishop Tutu said on June 29.
“That crisis has to be resolved sooner rather than later,” he said. “I think that a very good argument can be made for having an international force to restore peace.
“Almost everybody will say that any arrangement after Friday’s charade, that arrangement should be one in which Mr Mugabe certainly does not feature any longer,” Archbishop Tutu said.
In a pastoral letter issued earlier this month, Harare bishop Dr. Sebastian Bakare urged Anglicans to hold fast to their faith in the face of government persecution. The security services have closed Harare’s Anglican churches and assaulted clergy and worshippers, accusing them of being supporters of the MDC. Former Harare bishop Dr. Nolbert Kunonga, has backed the regime and is being rewarded with government support in his campaign to bend the diocese to his will.
Malawi free to appoint bishop: CEN 6.27.08 p 8. June 29, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Central Africa.add a comment
A Malawian High Court has lifted the injunction filed against the Central African House of Bishops, blocking the appointment of a bishop.
On June 13 a judge lifted the injunction after finding the complaint had not been properly notarized. On Feb 16 the diocese failed to elect a bishop after two candidates, the Rev. Jeremy Sheehy, the former principal of St. Stephen’s House, Oxford and Canon Alinafe Kalemba, Dean of the Zomba Theological College failed to gain a two-thirds majority after six ballots.
Delegates from the diocese voted for Fr. Sheehy, while the provincial electors voted for Canon Kalemba. The former provincial secretary of Central Africa, Fr. Eston Pembamoyo explained the “house was divided between those who said no to mzungu [white man] and those who said no to the black man.” Under Central African canon law the diocese’s 12 electors and the Province’s 9 episcopal electors must elect a candidate by a two-thirds majority.
Under canon law, in the event of a failed election, the House of Bishops is authorized to appoint a bishop. A clergy and lay group within the diocese filed suit against the Central African House of Bishops, which sought to appoint Canon Kalemba bishop, arguing the appointment would violate canon law.
Last week’s court decision permits the House of Bishops to appoint Canon Kalemba bishop in succession to the former Archbishop of Central Africa and Bishop of Upper Shire, Bernard Malango. However, the court also granted leave to appeal to the petitioners, allowing them to take their case to the country’s supreme court in Blantyre.
Bishop of Harare urges people to hold firm: CEN 6.27.08 p 8. June 28, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Persecution, Politics, Zimbabwe.1 comment so far
The Bishop of Harare has released a pastoral letter to his diocese, urging them to hold fast to the faith in the face of government persecution.
“In Zimbabwe today falsehood has almost become a national disease,” Bishop Sebastian Bakare wrote on June 18. “Some newspapers and electronic media thrive on spreading falsehoods. They twist the truth for falsehood,” he said.
These lies were being used by the government to justify “torture, killings, and arrests” to “sustain their status quo,” he said.
Anglicans in Harare were being “persecuted on allegations by former members of our church that they are gays, lesbians or MDC, [members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party].”
“Some politicians and police officers have embraced these allegations as truth and are out there to persecute the church of God. Our church buildings remain locked and are declared no-go areas by the police. Some police officers implementing the so-called “directives from above” have gone to the extent of forbidding us to pray even under a tree,” the bishop reported.
The lies told about the diocese had one meaning, the bishop said; “our faith is being put to the test. Those who are not strong enough will fall away.”
“The sight of helmeted riot police in front of our churches preventing the faithful from praying will go down as a shameful chapter in the history of our country which considers itself to be Christian,” the bishop said.
In the midst of these travails, the church in Zimbabwe had not been forgotten he said. The Archbishop of Capetown, and the Bishops of Massachusetts and Tonbridge had come to Harare “to stand by us and have firsthand experience of what we are going through in this Diocese.”
The bishop urged all Anglicans to bear the trials of the present day. “The suffering that we are going through becomes the fruit of courageous witness to our faith in Jesus who himself was falsely condemned to death,” Bishop Bakare said.
Former bishops are excommunicated: CEN 6.06.08 p 7. June 10, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.add a comment
| Central Africa has excommunicated the former bishops of Harare and Manicaland. In letters dated May 16, the Dean of the Province of Central Africa, Bishop Albert Chama of Northern Zambia pronounced the “sentence of Greater Excommunication” upon former Bishops Nolbert Kunonga (pictured) and Elson Jakazi.
The bishops had separated themselves from the church by “withdrawing from the Province of Central Africa, forming another Church, and casting aside the Constitution and Canons of the Church of the Province of Central Africa.” All Anglicans were asked to pray for “these, our erring brothers” that they may “speedily attain true repentance, for their own souls’ health and the wellbeing of the body of Church.” Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Bishops plead for justice and peace in the Zimbabwe crisis: CEN 6.06.08 p 6. June 10, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Persecution, Zimbabwe.add a comment
| The Bishops of Central Africa have released a pastoral letter pleading for peace, justice and the restoration of the rule of law in Zimbabwe.
On June 3 the Bishops of Botswana, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia released a statement voicing their dismay at the “escalation of violence” in the wake of the March 29 elections. Signed by all of the Church’s bishops, including the five bishops of Zimbabwe: Peter Hatendi of Manicaland (pictured), Sebastian Bakare of Harare, Ishmael Mukuwanda of Central Zimbabwe, Wilson Sitshebo of Matabeleland, and Godfrey Tawonezvi of Masvingo, is the strongest statement yet issued by the Province, and is the first unambiguous condemnation of the Mugabe regime by the whole House of Bishops. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Mugabe attacks Anglican Archbishops: CEN 6.06.08 p 8. June 8, 2008
Posted by geoconger in British Foreign Policy, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.1 comment so far
| THE GOVERNMENT of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe has denounced the Archbishops of Canterbury and York as tools of British foreign policy. In a June 2 article published in the government-backed Harare Herald, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the Archbishops’ plea for peace in Zimbabwe was an unwarranted interference in his country’s sovereignty.
On April 24, Dr Rowan Williams and Dr John Sentamu called upon the “heads of Christian denominations in Zimbabwe and our brother Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Rev Thabo Makgoba, for the government of South Africa, the SADC region and the United Nations to act effectively” to help resolve the social and humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Interview: Stephen Crittendon of ABC National’s The Religion Report 6.03.08 June 4, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Interviews/Citations, Radio Broadcasts, Zimbabwe.1 comment so far
Stephen Crittenden, host of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) National Radio program The Religion Report interviewed me for the show’s June 4 broadcast on the topic of Dr. Nolbert Kunonga and the church crisis in Zimbabwe.
Anglican Churches in Harare padlocked: CEN 5.30.08 p 7. May 31, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.add a comment
Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper.
The Diocese of Harare has issued an appeal for assistance to the Churches of Zimbabwe, saying the security services’ violent intervention into the life of the church was a perversion of justice and a violation of basic human rights.
Police loyal to Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe have backed the former bishop of Harare, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga in his battle with the new bishop Dr. Sebastian Bakare over the control of diocesan property. The result has been that Harare’s Anglican churches have been closed, padlocked by order of the police.
Critics charge Dr. Kunonga has been able to exploit Zimbabwe’s political turmoil to his advantage, linking in the eyes of the government the cause of Dr. Bakare with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) political fortunes.
“The police have continued to brutalize our people—which is sad,” said Bishop Albert Chama, Dean of the Province of Central Africa. “This is political interference. I’m sure the police are getting orders from above. They’re protecting Kunonga,” he told the New York Times last week.
On May 12 the Harare High Court rejected an application from Dr. Kunonga seeking to dissolve an order requiring him to share the use of church facilities pending the outcome of litigation with Dr. Bakare and the Province of Central Africa.
Police have ignored the court orders and have ejected all but the handful of Kunonga loyalists from the churches. Arrests and beatings at the hands of the security services have been reported at churches across the diocese by those attempting to worship.
On May 26, approximately 80 women were detained after they sought to enter Christ Church in Borrowdale for a worship service. Later that day independent journalist and author Peter Godwin was arrested by the police at Christ Church when he attempted to take a photograph of his parents’ graves—but was released later that day.
The state-controlled press has also taken up Dr. Kunonga’s banner, reporting on May 5 that he had been given sole custody of the diocese’s property—a statement that was “a gross misrepresentation of the legal position and a distortion of the truth,” Dr. Bakare said.
Dr. Kunonga has also accused Dr. Bakare and the Anglican Church of being a front for the opposition MDC party. Dr. Bakare denied the allegations, saying the church was “not an appendix of any political party in Zimbabwe.”
The allegations that the Anglican Church was “pro homosexual,” that it “supports the MDC,” and that it was an appendage of the Church of England “wanting to re-colonise the country” was false, the bishop said.
Dr. Bakare called upon Zimbabwe’s churches “to join us in prayer as we fight for religious freedom which is being trampled upon.” What was happening to Anglicans in Harare was “indicative of what can happen to any denomination tomorrow. As a Christian body we understand that if one part of the body is suffering and is persecuted the whole body suffers,” he said.
Archbishop’s warning over Zimbabwe crisis: CEN 5.17.08 May 17, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Politics, Zimbabwe.1 comment so far
| THERE WILL be no “swift or easy answers” to the Zimbabwe crisis, Cape Town Archbishop Thabo Makgoba reported following a briefing with South African President Thabo Mbeki. But the political stalemate will not mute the Church’s call for justice and peace in Zimbabwe, the new archbishop said.
Responding to sharp criticism from church leaders over his handling of the Zimbabwe crisis, South African President Thabo Mbeki invited 15 religious leaders on May 2 to hear an overview of his mediation efforts in Zimbabwe, spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga said. The meeting was held before yesterday’s announcement of a June 27 date for the run-off election for the presidency. On April 27, the president also held a two-hour private meeting with Cape Town Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, who last month called pressed the government to impose an arms embargo on the regime of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper. |
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Church leaders denounce Zimbabwe’s ‘descent into anarchy’: CEN 5.09.08 p 9. May 11, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Zimbabwe.1 comment so far
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have added their voices to the chorus denouncing Zimbabwe’s decent into anarchy as Robert Mugabe seeks to maintain his hold on power.
On April 24, Dr. Rowan Williams and Dr. John Sentamu released a joint statement warning that unless the international community takes action, the “continuing political violence and drift could unleash spiraling communal violence.”
Nobel laureate and former Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu warned “Zimbabwe is staring into the abyss. Violence is growing and the people are suffering greatly as a result. It is now vital that we all do what we can to calm the situation.”
He backed the call of the present Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba for an arms embargo on Zimbabwe. “It is obvious that supplying large quantities of arms at this stage would risk escalating the violence, perhaps resulting in the large-scale loss of life,” he said on April 24.
The Primate of Australia, Archbishop Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane joined his Roman Catholic counterpart Archbishop Philip Wilson and other church leaders in releasing a statement of “deep concern over the deteriorating political, security, economic and human rights situation in Zimbabwe.” If “nothing is done to help the people of Zimbabwe from their predicament, we shall soon be witnessing atrocities similar to that experienced in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi,” they warned.
Drs Williams and Sentamu also voiced concern over the state sanctioned violence unleashed against the people of Zimbabwe. “Faithful men, women and young people who seek better governance in either political or church affairs continue to be beaten, intimidated or oppressed,” they said.
“Churches across England have been praying for Zimbabwe before, during and after the polls,” the English archbishops said. They urged all Christians to pray for the peace of Zimbabwe, adding “we must work to build a civil society movement that both creates political will and gives voice to those who demand an end to the mayhem that grows out of injustice, poverty, exclusion and violence.”
New Archbishop calls for arms embargo on Zimbabwe: CEN 4.30.08 April 30, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Persecution, Politics, Zimbabwe.add a comment
| The Archbishop of Cape Town has called upon the United Nations Security Council to impose an arms embargo upon Zimbabwe. In a statement released on April 22, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba also criticized the foreign policy strategy of President Thabo Mkeki, saying the South African leader’s efforts were failing the people of Zimbabwe.
The new archbishop’s statements on Zimbabwe mark a new era in church-state relations in South Africa, with a new generation coming to fore with less ties to the African National Congress (ANC). While former Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane would challenge the ANC government’s health and development polices, critics charged he backed the government’s hands off policies toward the Mugabe regime. Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper’s Religious Intelligence section. |
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Zimbabwe church pleads for prayer: CEN 4.25.08 p 1. April 27, 2008
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Church of England Newspaper, Persecution, Politics, Zimbabwe.add a comment
The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe has called upon the Anglican Communion to mark this Sunday, April 27, as a day of prayer for the strife-torn Central African nation.
Meanwhile, The Archbishop of Cape Town has called upon the United Nations Security Council to impose an arms embargo upon Zimbabwe.
In a statement released on April 22, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba also criticized the foreign policy strategy of President Thabo Mkeki, saying the South African leader’s efforts were failing the people of Zimbabwe.
The Chancellor of the Diocese of Harare, and Vice-Chancellor of the Province of Central Africa, Robert Stumbles, said a “desperate cry from the hearts of Zimbabwe screams across the world.”
The Church called upon all Christians to pray and reflect “on the critical situation in Zimbabwe, a nation in dire distress and teetering on the brink of human disaster.”
“Let the cry for help touch your heart and mind,” the statement said, urging “everyone anxious to rescue Zimbabwe from violence, the concealing and juggling of election results, deceit, oppression and corruption” to pray for “righteousness, joy, peace, compassion, honesty, justice, democracy and freedom from fear and want.”
On April 22 the leaders of all of Zimbabwe’s main Christian churches released a statement condemning the growing anarchy and violence within the country in the wake of the March 29 General Elections.
“We warn the world that if nothing is done to help the people of Zimbabwe from their predicament, we shall soon be witnessing genocide similar to that experienced in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and other hot spots in Africa and elsewhere,” the leaders of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Zimbabwe Council of Churches said.
“We appeal to the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the UN to work towards arresting the deteriorating political and security situation in Zimbabwe,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, a South African court has granted the Bishop of Natal and a church group an emergency order banning the transshipment of Chinese weapons from the port of Durban to Zimbabwe.
On April 18 lawyers for Bishop Rubin Phillip and Patrick Kearney, executive director of the Diakonia Council of Churches, presented a petition to Durban High Court Judge Kate Pillay asking her to bar the shipment of Chinese weapons destined for the Zimbabwe security forces.
According to the bill of lading for the Chinese flagged freighter An Yue Jiang,the cargo destined for Zimbabwe’s security forces included three million rounds of 7.62mm bullets – the calibre used in AK47 assault rifles and 69 rocket-propelled grenade launchers with munitions.
The new archbishop’s statements on Zimbabwe mark a new era in church-state relations in South Africa, with a new generation coming to fore with less ties to the African National Congress (ANC). While former Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane would challenge the ANC government’s health and development polices, critics charged he backed the government’s hands off policies toward the Mugabe regime.
“The plight of the people of Zimbabwe is heart-breaking,” Archbishop Makgoba said. “Already bruised, broken and crushed by oppression and economic hardship before the elections, they are now even more divided, despondent and, in many cases, hopeless than they were before.”
