Top Catholic sources said Mugabe had requested a private papal audience while he is in Rome to attend a large UN summit of world leaders to discuss world food security, that started on Tuesday and ends today.
Mugabe, whose attendance at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization summit in the Italian capital, Rome, has provoked an angry response, has been told that other world leaders have also requested an audience and that it would be impossible for the Pope to meet each of them separately as they will only be in Rome for at least 48 hours.
Informed sources however said the Pope’s decision to snub a meeting with Mugabe was fortuitous given the veteran ruler’s worsening despotic rule.
Mugabe, a Catholic educated by Jesuit missionaries, regularly attends Mass in the capital, Harare. Zimbabwe’s bishops’ conference – the county has nine Catholic bishops – has regularly slammed his bad governance, economic mismanagement, graft and human rights violations, and has been applying pressure on him to step down.
“No doubt the Vatican and the Holy Father would have made allowances if they could to meet Mugabe: the Holy See is always open to dialogue with everyone,” said a senior Catholic source. “But it would have been seen by many as highly inappropriate given his repressive rule. It would have risked seriously upsetting the Zimbabwean flock.” Â
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