Of church and politics : Mail & Guardian Online

Kerk en politiek in Zimbabwe.

Nothing could have conjured the images of a riven country more eloquently than the Zimbabwe national day of prayer. An event meant to unite a country was marked by a slanging match that would not have looked out of place before a heavyweight boxing match.

At the event staged at the Glamis Arena in Harare, the country’s President, Robert Mugabe, was initially conciliatory, urging the church to point out his government’s “shortcomings, sins of commission or omission”.

But later he turned to lay into the outspoken Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube: “When the church leaders start being political, we regard them as political creatures — and we are vicious in that area,” he said.