The Vatican’s diplomatic envoy in Zimbabwe has dismissed charges that the appointment of the new archbishop of Harare, Robert Ndlovu, a member of the minority Ndebele ethnic group, is ”irregular” and ”politically driven”.
The appointment of 49-year-old Ndlovu, currently bishop of Hwange in western Zimbabwe, to the highest clerical position in the country has been criticized by government figures and even senior churchmen, who argue that the new archbishop should be a member of the majority Shona ethnic group from central and eastern Zimbabwe.
The state-controlled daily Herald newspaper said on Monday that unnamed ”influential Catholics”, including an unidentified cabinet minister, had written to Father Edward Adams, the Papal Nunciature in Harare, to protest the appointment of Archbishop Ndlovu.
The newspaper said there was suspicion that the appointment was ”unprocedural”.
However, in a statement published in Tuesday’s Herald, Adams said Ndlovu’s appointment ”has nothing to do with politics” and that ”he comes to Harare in obedience of the express wish of the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II”.
The move is seen by many as an effort by the pontiff to distance the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe from the regime of President Robert Mugabe, who draws the bulk of his support from the Shona majority.
The second archdiocese of Bulawayo, in western Zimbabwe, is headed by the fiery Archbishop Pius Ncube, also an Ndebele and among Mugabe’s fiercest critics.
Critics have accused the church of being largely silent over human rights abuses in the country, including the massacre of at least 20 000 Ndebele civilians by Mugabe’s security forces in western Zimbabwe during the early 1980s.
Ndlovu succeeds former Harare archbishop Patrick Chakaipa who died last year, and who was regarded as a confidante of Mugabe’s.
He was instrumental in obtaining a special papal concession for the 80-year-old leader to marry his wife, a divorcee 40 years his junior.
Ndlovu is regarded as an uncontroversial, humble figure. ”He is deeply spiritual, very prudent, very mature and very transparent,” Ncube said shortly after Ndlovu’s appointment. ”He will not make headlines.”
However, an indication that Ndlovu is more likely to take a more critical position against the government came earlier this month when his office issued a public apology over a group of nuns who had attempted to seize a white-owned farm.
In remarks seen as critical of Mugabe’s campaign to drive nearly all the country’s white farmers off their land, the new archbishop insisted that land redistribution should be ”in accordance with the laws of the country, transparent and above all, just.”
Friar Nigel Johnson, an outspoken Jesuit priest in the western city of Bulawayo who has been arrested for taking part in demonstrations against the government’s human rights abuses, has said that the Vatican ”might have got it right and appointed the best man for the job”. — Sapa