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Mugabe and cleric foe join thousands to honor pioneer black archbishop
Episcopal News Service
Issue:
Section:
2003-087-3
Posted: Thursday, April 24, 2003
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They came from all around the region to pay tribute to Zimbabwe's first black Roman Catholic archbishop, Patrick Chakaipa. President Robert Mugabe was there, as was one of his most ardent critics, Archbishop Pius Ncube. Ncube shook the hand of the president, who in turn praised the deceased bishop but used the service to launch into a bitter attack on opponents like Ncube, homosexuals and the British government.
Nearly 30,000 people, including Mugabe, other high-ranking Zimbabwean government officials and Roman Catholic Church representatives from neighboring countries, thronged the City Sports Center in Harare for a mass in honor of Chakaipa, who died in April 8 a private hospital recently at age 70.
Groups of Catholic youth from many dioceses carried banners lamenting the death of a man who was regarded by many as 'grandfather' or a custodian of wisdom, while fellow clergy mourned 'the passing on of a brother and leader.'
Outspoken government critic Ncube, the archbishop of Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, stunned mourners when he went and shook the hand of Mugabe, the person he has publicly criticized for the deteriorating economic and human rights situation in the southern African country.
'I went and shook his hand just to show that I have nothing personal against him,' Ncube later told journalists. 'The crux of the matter is that he should bring about good governance and the economic well-being of the people.'
In contrast, Mugabe used the holy mass as a platform from which to denigrate perceived enemies of his government: the British government, gays and Ncube, whom he did not name, but described as 'a bishop whose behavior does not befit that of clergy.'
Mugabe said one of the reasons that relations between Zimbabwe and its former colonial power Britain were strained was because there were 'many gays' in the British government. 'According to us, a man only marries a woman, not a man marrying a man,' Mugabe said. 'That is one of the things where we differ with the British.'
Leaders of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) had sought to have Chakaipa declared a national hero. National hero status is conferred by Zanu PF's supreme decision-making body, the Politburo, on individuals considered to have made significant contributions to the country's 1970s liberation war.
Ncube opposed the ruling party's proposal, saying the late archbishop was not a politician. 'National hero status is political and the archbishop was not a politician. I am sure he wouldn't accept it himself and I think the church people in Harare would not accept it either. His role was religious, not political.'
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| © 2004, The Episcopal Church, USA. Episcopal News Service content may be reprinted without permission as long as credit is given to ENS. |
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