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Catholic World News News Feature

Did Vatican press Zimbabwe archbishop to resign? September 12, 2007

A state-run newspaper in Zimbabwe claims that Archbishop Pius Ncube was asked by the Vatican to resign in light of adultery charges against him. The country's episcopal conference denies that report.

The Harare Herald, which has given sensational coverage to charges that the archbishop had an affair with his secretary, said that Ncube's resignation, which was announced on September 11, came at the request of the Holy See.

The Vatican announcement on September 11 had indicated only that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted the archbishop's resignation. Archbishop Ncube himself told reporters that he had submitted the resignation shortly after the publication of charges against him; he said that he did so in order "to spare my fellow bishops and the body of the Church any further attacks."

Archbishop Ncube, an outspoken critic of the authoritarian regime headed by President Robert Mugabe, has insisted that he is innocent of the adultery charges. The archbishop and his supporters claim that the government has orchestrated a smear campaign in order to silence his criticisms.

A spokesman for the bishops' conference of Zimbabwe told the Catholic News Service that Archbishop Ncube had submitted his resignation freely, denying that the Vatican had pressed him to resign. However he also said that the archbishop's resignation was "not expected." Ncube had earlier told reporters that he had offered to resign in July, when newspapers in the nation's capital first ran stories on the adultery charges.