Zimbabwe Bishop
Nolbert Kunonga should resign, says Botswana bishop
28 Sept 2007-
Botawana- Bishop Nolbert Kunonga of Harare in Zimbabwe should resign his
post following his attempt to withdraw his diocese from the Anglican
Communion's Central Africa Province. This is due to his opposition to
the granting of what Kunonga described as "Christian rights" to
homosexual Christians, says Botswana Bishop Musonda Trevor Selwyn Mwamba.
Speaking from his office in Gaborone, Mwamba told
Ecumenical News International: "The decision taken by the Bishop of
Harare is tantamount to a schism. The next logical step is for the
Bishop of Harare to resign."
Mwamba added: "The See of the diocese of Harare will then
be declared vacant and a new bishop elected to replace Kunonga. The
schismatic group should not be under any illusion in thinking that they
have title to the properties and various trusts legally vested in the
diocese of Harare."
On September 8, Kunonga proposed a resolution at a synod
of the Anglican Church of Central Africa held in Malawi that the Harare
diocese should withdraw because some of the synod's bishops supported
full "Christian rights" for homosexual people.
"What a shock it was for most delegates, who until then
believed that all the bishops, clergy and laity in the province were of
one mind on the issue of homosexuality, namely, that the province holds
to the Lambeth Conference resolution ... which calls for a listening
process, dialogue and reconciliation," Mwamba said.
Mwamba noted that the issue of homosexuality raised at
the Malawi synod was "simply a cover for the real underlying issue: a
quest for personal power."
He added, "The vicious slander that was being spread to
tarnish the reputations of some bishops in the province was and is
intended to ensure that when the electoral college meets to elect the
next archbishop of Central Africa, these bishops will stand little
chance of success."
A statement by Kunonga in the State-controlled Herald
newspaper in Harare on September 15 that said Mwamba is "an avowed
homosexual" was libellous, said the Botswana bishop. He said that in an
interview in the Herald, Kunonga was quoted saying that Zimbabwe's
eastern diocese of Manicaland supported his plan to withdraw Harare from
the Central Province, a claim denied by the Rev. Eston Dickson Pembamoyo,
provincial secretary of the Church of the Province of Central Africa.
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