South African President Thabo Mbeki on Sunday led national mourning for Pope John Paul II, the pontiff who often denounced apartheid and later praised the country’s peaceful transition to democracy.
”The government and the people of South Africa acknowledge the cardinal role that His Holiness played in his efforts to strengthen the moral fibre among Catholics, people of all faiths and humanity in general,” Mbeki said in a statement.
”We express our appreciation for the role played by His Holiness in pursuit of global peace, development and cooperation among nations of the world, including his support for Africa’s development and renewal,” he said.
The African National Congress party, whose former leader Nelson Mandela — the nation’s first black president — met the pope on more than one occasion, extended ”its condolences and sympathies to members of the Catholic faith”.
”The ANC joins millions around the world in mourning the death last night [Saturday night] of Pope John Paul II, a widely respected and admired world leader,” the ANC said in a statement.
In Cape Town, Nobel peace laureate and retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu said he hopes an African will succeed John Paul II, who died late on Saturday.
”We hope the cardinals when they meet will follow the first non-Italian pope by electing the first African pope,” South African Broadcasting Corporation television news quoted Tutu as saying at a press conference in his Cape Town home.
Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze, a 72-year-old arch-conservative and number four in the current Vatican hierarchy, is seen as the wider world’s best candidate to oppose an Italian comeback in the leadership of the Holy See.
The leader of South Africa’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance’s Tony Leon, also mourned the demise of the pope.
”Along with millions of Catholics in South Africa — and billions of Christians around the world — we join in celebrating the extraordinary life and moral and religious leadership of the pontiff,” said Leon in a statement.
John Paul II made his first visit to South Africa in 1995, a year after the end of about five decades of racist white minority rule, after years of voicing his opposition to apartheid. — Sapa-AFP