Zimbabwean church rejects honour for Archbishop Chaikapa

Catholic archbishops in Zimbabwe have rejected President Mugabe's efforts to award the late Archbishop Chaikapa with the status of 'national hero'. The Zimbabwean press reports that Zanu PF applied to have the primate buried at the national shrine, but the bishops and the Chakaipa family turned down the idea arguing that it was improper to politicise Chakaipa's funeral. The bishops argued that burying Chakaipa at the national shrine would have suggested that he was a Zanu PF party member. Archbishop Pius Ncube said it would have been improper to equate a man of the cloth with politicians. "It was just a joke. Some people wanted to score cheap political mileage because the whole issue is irrelevant and even Mugabe himself never raised it at the funeral," said Ncube. "Even Chiyangwa who proposed it never came to the funeral and so you can see that it was totally out of the question."