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Catholic World News News Feature

Zimbabwe bishops rally behind accused prelate August 31, 2007

The Catholic bishops of Zimbabwe have come to the defense of Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulwayo, accusing the country's government of orchestrating an "outrageous and utterly deplorable" smear campaign against the archbishop.

State-controlled media outlets in Zimbabwe have been providing heavy coverage of charges that Archbishop Ncube engaged in an adulterous affair with a woman who had been working as his secretary. His supporters say that the charges have been raised to distract attention from the archbishop's complaints about the authoritarian government headed by President Robert Mugabe.

In a paid advertisement that appeared in the Herald newspaper in Harare, the nation's capital, the members of the nation's episcopal conference said that the archbishop was being attacked in an effort to undermine his moral leadership. "We support him fully in his present painful personal situation and ask all our faithful to remember him in their prayers," the bishops said.

Noting that the entire episcopal conference has joined in a public condemnation of government corruption, and a demand for immediate changes in the country's political leadership, the bishops' conference went on to say that Archbishop Ncube-- who has called for the ouster of the Mugabe regime-- has "courageously and with moral authority advocated social justice and political action to overcome the grievous crisis facing our country."

The public campaign against Archbishop Ncube, the bishops conclude, is really "an assault on the Catholic Church."