Church leaders urged to deal with Kunonga-(22-02-07)

e catastrophic spread of HIV/AIDS, widespread and pervasive poverty, severe drought, lack of governmental transparency and how the church can use its moral influence to remove despots from power.
But one real issue the prelates will find impossible to sidestep is the leader of the Anglican community in Zimbabwe, the Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, who has been accused by his own priests of terrorising Christians and turning his diocese into a branch of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu (PF) party.
Zimbabwean Anglicans have urged church heads gathered in Dar es Salaam to act against Kunonga, a ruling party loyalist in his late 50s, who they say is a disgrace to Christianity and to Africa. Anglican priests critical of Mugabe have been transferred to tough rural parishes and many have resigned. A plethora of legal cases between Kunonga and his disillusioned flock are stuck in Zimbabwe ‘s chaotic court system. In place of priests who have resigned, he has appointed men who have pledged not to criticise the head of state. He even licensed the acting vice president of Zimbabwe, Joseph Msika, a man on record as saying that whites are not human beings, to act as a deacon of the church.
From the time of his disputed election as Bishop of Harare in 2001 to the present Kunonga has, say Anglicans in Harare, made no secret of his personal ambitions for fame and fortune or his willingness to exploit fully his sycophantic relationship to Mugabe and Zanu (PF).
His election in 2001 was shrouded in mystery, resulting in the defeat of a popular priest, and marred by widespread allegations that Kunonga had used his influence with the ruling party to secure the post. He is the only clergyman among many powerful individual Zimbabweans against whom heavy sanctions have been imposed by the European Union and the United States.
Kunonga has used his pulpit at St Mary’s Cathedral in Harare to support Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme, in which thousands of commercial farms have been confiscated from mainly white owners but also from some black farmers. During one of Kunonga’s pro-Mugabe sermons, the choir began singing hymns to drown out his words. The choir was subsequently sacked by the bishop along with the cathedral wardens and cathedral council.
He was rewarded by Mugabe with St Marnock’s, 2000 acres of prime farmland 15 kilometres outside Harare , confiscated from its previous white owner, 25-year-old Marcus Hale. The bishop installed his son in the seven-bedroom farmhouse, which overlooked a lake and sweeping fields of wheat and soya: the lake remains, but the house is now derelict and the crops have been replaced by weeds. The bishop, a short, thickset man who wears a jewelled cross over his cassock, also evicted 50 black workers and their families from the property.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo , Pius Ncube, Zimbabwe ‘s most outspoken critic of Mugabe, said Kunonga had aligned himself with the “forces of evil”.
Last year, black Zimbabwean Anglican priests exiled in Britain called on the Ugandan-born Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, to intervene in the dispute between Kunonga and his many critics.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, stepped into the dispute before the Dar es Salaam summit and said the bishop should be suspended until allegations against him have been properly dealt with.
“In the context of a prolonged and political crisis, the Anglican Diocese of Harare faces intolerable strain in the form of the very grave and unresolved accusations against Bishop Kunonga,” said a statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s London office.
“In other jurisdictions, a priest or bishop facing such serious charges would be suspended without prejudice until the case has been closed. It is therefore very difficult for Bishop Kunonga to be regarded as capable of functioning as a bishop elsewhere in the communion,” it continued.
With many other contentious issues to tackle that could split the worldwide Anglican church, the bishops in Dar es Salaam may not be able to solve the Kunonga problem. But once the ageing Mugabe steps down, Kunonga’s reign will end also, for he only retains his post as Zimbabwe ‘s most powerful Anglican with the president’s patronage. – Trevor Grundy is an author, broadcaster and journalist specialising in religious affairs and Zimbabwean issues, who lived and worked in Zimbabwe and other central African countries from 1966 to 1996.