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Zimbabwe bishops 'undermined' by Vatican's welcome to Mugabe


Robert Mugabe

Robert Mugabe

When television broadcasts of the beatification of Pope John Paul II in the Vatican showed Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe receiving Holy Communion, many Catholics in southern Africa were scandalised.

Gunther Simmermacher, editor of the South African Catholic newspaper Southern Cross, said that many readers wrote to express their anger and hurt at Mr Mugabe's warm welcome in the Vatican and his reception of the Eucharist at so public and exalted an event. He said: "How, many ask, can it be that a man who is responsible for the killing and persecution of so many people may take his place at the Lord's Table?"

Defending the Vatican, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, spokesman for the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference and a critic of the president's human rights record, explained: "For any Christian, receiving Communion is an act of personal choice made out of conscience before God. As such, it is a matter for the internal forum - between God and the believer." No person but Mr Mugabe and perhaps his confessor can know whether he was in a state of grace when he presented himself for Communion in St Peter's Square. It is not our place to interrogate Mr Mugabe internal forum.

"Moreover, as long as Mr Mugabe is not under interdict (as some Catholic pro-choice politicians in the United States are, at the discretion of local bishops), he may continue to receive Communion. We must hope that his personal chaplain will offer him the appropriate spiritual advice."

Many critics also ask why Mr Mugabe was allowed to attend the beatification ceremony of the Pope who in 2003 gave the Zimbabwean ambassador a most devastating public dressing-down over his regime's reign of terror? He is banned from travelling to the EU, but several times now has come to Italy with his wife to attend events at the Vatican.

Simmermarcher wrote that televised images of "the tyrant being warmly embraced by a broadly smiling prelate was embarrassing for the courageous bishops of Zimbabwe, and to the clergy, religious and laity who strive for a peaceful transition to an equitable and accountable democracy."

Writing for SW Radio Africa, Tererai Karimakwenda says: "The church's mandate to welcome all sinners, including murderers and dictators, has been defended even by those who were upset by Mugabe's visit. But it is the level of warmth that was shown to the ZANU PF leader that has been of great concern."

Sources: UCAN/Southern Cross/SWRadio Africa

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