Mugabe, who was accompanied by his wife Grace, chatted briefly with the Pope after standing in a long line of world leaders queuing to greet the Pontiff.
The president is subject to EU travel restrictions but can visit Rome if he is a guest of the Vatican.
In his homily, the Pope exhorted leaders to be at the service of their people.
“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministryâ€
With those words the then Pope Benedict XVI set in motion a chain of events that has now seen Robert Mugabe in Rome today to attend the inauguration of a new Pope.
There must be a quiet corner somewhere, in one of those beautiful chapels perhaps, where a man can take a solitary moment and reflect on his life. If that man is of an advanced age he should be able to come out of there with a decision befitting his age. If the same man is older than the Pope who has just retired it must surely cause him to spend a whole afternoon meditating. If the man is also the President of a country he should be able to reflect on his time at the helm of the country and ask himself whether he has done right for the people of that country.
If the man taking that quiet moment were Robert Mugabe he would first need to send Grace away with an unlimited budget. She usually doesn’t have a problem with affordability issues. She should be able to find some fancy shoes that match her famed small feet. The nation he left is at a critical moment, the man needs as much time alone as possible.
We are not expecting the result of such introspection to follow in the footsteps of the Pope. In other words we don’t expect Robert Mugabe to step down on the contrary he must step up. He must behave like a man, with children, like a man who attends Church. Like the leader of a country with 90% unemployment. He must ask himself why Beatrice Mtetwa is being persecuted.
Mugabe needs to have an honest conversation with the Almighty. He needs to ask himself why Anna Muzvidziwa was arrested at Church and taken with her baby to prison.
It is worth remembering that the celebrations in Rome today are as a result of an election. The Pope after all is an elected official. Whilst he is being high and mighty in Rome Mugabe must ask around whether any people died in the election. He will find that none of the Cardinals reported that one of their 12 year old cousins had been petrol bombed as he slept. He might well discover that there was white smoke to signal the happy occasion of the end of the election and not blood on the streets.
Any election should be about taking the institution, country, class, group whatever the case maybe forward. The thought of an election should not bring the fear into the minds of the electorate.
Its just that Robert Mugabe seems to operate on a different planet. Otherwise he would have never have gone to Rome in the first place.