HomeOld_PostsSins of the Catholic Church

Sins of the Catholic Church

Published on

By Akbhad Makumbe

THE Bishop Rudolf Nyandoro-chaired Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe (CCJPZ) recently released its July 30 harmonised elections report.
That is not a sin.
The report, among other things, concluded that the 2018 elections were marred by massive intimidation, isolation and violence in rural areas.
However, before going into the details of the Commission’s report, it is important to point out that many people do not understand the Roman Catholic Church as an institution.
In order to grasp the role of the Catholic Church in the politics of Zimbabwe and how it disturbed the religious, cultural and social fabric of MaDzimbahwe, history is the best teacher.
Others may hail the Catholic Church for establishing schools nationwide, but people must never forget that whites have no permanent friends, but interests.
Yes, we have the likes of Marist Brothers, Kutama College, St Ignatious College, Hartmann House, Dominican Convent, St George’s College and other Catholic Schools dotted around the country.
Let it be known that a Catholic priest, Father Andrew Hartmann, was Chaplin of the British armed force, the Pioneer Column, who seized Zimbabwe on September 12 1890.
Today, we have a school, Hartmann House, built in his honour and one wonders if students churned from that institution over the years celebrate being Zimbabwean and really know what it means to be Zimbabwean!
No doubt the Catholic Church catered for the ‘spiritual’ needs of the military force that invaded Zimbabwe.
These were men on a mission, ‘praying’ to steal land from MaDzimbahwe.
For that contribution and service, in 1891, the chief coloniser, Cecil John Rhodes, rewarded the Catholic Church with 15 000 acres of land in Chishawasha, about 25 km north-east of the then Salisbury (now Harare).
On February 15 1897, one Fr Biehler, a Catholic priest at Chishawasha Mission, complained to Lord Earl Grey, the then administrator of Rhodesia, in one of his intelligence reports during the First Chimurenga saying:
“Our mode of fighting is not the proper one for MaShonas… It seems to to me that the only way of doing anything at all with these natives is to starve them, destroy their lands and kill all that can be killed.
MaShonas are the most hopeless of mankind and the only chance for the future of the race is to exterminate the whole people, both male and female, over the age of 14.”
Ask yourself reader: Why such a genocidal solution by a supposedly ‘holy father’ of the Roman Catholic Church?
This was exactly Rhodes’ desire – a man known for saying: “…whites are the finest flower of civilisation….”
Indeed, Fr Biehler’s sentiments became the official scotched-earth military policy which the colonial army implemented with a ruthlessness which decimated everything it came across.
What kind of church proposes genocide as a solution to justified African resistance?
What sort of church baptised Africans and gave them English names before hanging them?
Sekuru Kaguvi is a classic example.
On April 27 1898, one Father Richartz baptised Sekuru Kaguvi and christened him ‘Dismas’ (the good thief who was crucified alongside Jesus).
He was hanged shortly afterwards.
His crime – fighting for his land.
Mbuya Nehanda on the other hand, refused to be baptised.
Instead, she vowed: “Mapfupa angu achamuka! (My bones shall rise)”
Father Richartz must have been gutted for failing to convert Mbuya Nehanda.
Still, they hanged her.
According to the late Dr Felix Muchemwa, in his book The Struggle for Land in Zimbabwe (1890-2010): “Father Richartz blessed the white settler perpetrators of the genocide and baptised the African victims before they were murdered.”
This, among other atrocities, is worth looking at in order to understand the Roman Catholic Church.
Today, it would be remiss to talk about the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe and not mention compromised figures like Jesuit Fr Oskar Wermter, Archbishop Pius Ncube, Fr Nigel Johnson and Fr Marko Mkandla, among others.
Formation of the CCJP
It was at Vatican Council II that the development of the CCJP was mooted.
The Council was called by Pope John XXIII and took place in Vatican City from 1962 to 1965.
Looking back, one realises the Catholic Church was losing relevance to the modern world.
A closer look at the history of the Catholic Church makes one realise that the Church has been fighting against modernity in a bid to re-establish traditional Christianity.
Thus one cannot deny that there have been some efforts to try and make the Church relevant.
The Vatican Council II presented itself as a solution to this problem.
Its radical stance called for change, both within the Church and how the Church relates to the outside world.
A document produced by the second Vatican Council, the Gaudium et Spes, No. 90, noted that one of the most manifest ways in which the Catholic Church has exuded its intent for relevance was by forming the model of CCJP.
Note the CCJP was established in many countries.
For example, our neighbours Zambia and Malawi, among other countries, have their own.
CCJPZ: Man at the helm
The CCJPZ was established in 1972 as the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Rhodesia and later changed to CCJPZ after independence in 1980.
The CCJPZ has a representative structure that starts from national to village level and whose main aim is to ‘bring itself closer to the people.’
At national level, the CCJPZ has a Secretariat that synchronises the work of the CCJPZ’s eight Catholic Dioceses, namely Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare, Masvingo, Chinhoyi, Gweru, Gokwe and Hwange, along with the presence of a ‘justice and peace committee’ in each diocese.
In each (Arch)-Diocese, there is a Diocesan CCJPZ office that is led by a full-time Diocesan co-ordinator responsible for programme implementation.
The CCJPZ is also a Commission of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference with an affiliation to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in Rome, Italy.
The CCJPZ chair, Bishop Rudolf Nyandoro, was born on October 11 1968 in Gweru.
He was ordained priest on December 19 1998 and was appointed Bishop on January 28 2017.
He was then ordained Bishop of Gokwe Diocese on April 29 2017.
No doubt the ‘young’ bishop seems to be the blue-eyed boy of the Bishops Conference.
With just a year’s experience as Bishop, he is already heading two commissions of the Bishops’ Conference.
On April 12 2018 he was appointed chair of the CCJPZ for the period 2017 to 2020.
Bishop Nyandoro is also the chair of the Education and Culture Commission.
He is also a Seminary Board member from 2017 to 2020, together with Archbishop Alex Thomas and Archbishop Robert Christopher Ndlovu.
Bishop Nyandoro holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Counselling from the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU).
In 2015, he earned his PhD in Pastoral Counselling from the University of South Africa.
The CCJPZ’s past chairpersons include Mike Auret (1981-1990), Peter Peel (1990-1992), Charles Dube (1992-2000) and Bishop Abel Muchabaiwa.
Back to the 2018 election report
Like the European Union (EU) report, the Catholic bishops dismissed the July 2018 elections, describing them as ‘a hotbed of violence.’
The CCJPZ reported that rural folks succumbed to threats of evictions from their land.
The report said this has been the common and normalised political life in most Zimbabwean rural communities for the last decade during the election era.
Said the report in part: “This narrative is intriguing in that the intimidation, isolation and violence strategy has been similar and implemented almost at the same time across Zimbabwe.
This points to a centre or cartel where the concoction of political and electoral intimidation, isolation and violence is brewed and delivered throughout the electoral cycle by complementary structures, institutions and individuals that are rewarded through a well-resourced patronage system.”
There is something interesting about these so-called ‘men of the cloth.’
On June 29 2018, just before the country’s harmonised elections, the bishops issued a pre-election Pastoral Letter titled ‘Opening A New Door: The July 2018 Elections and Beyond’ commending the peace Zimbabwe had experienced before the election period.
Bishop Nyandoro is qouted saying it was impressive to see political parties campaigning freely countrywide.
“All political parties were preaching the message of peace and tolerance,” he said.
“The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) is congratulated for the maiden Bio-metric Voters’ Roll which is less controversial.”
The Bishop further commended ZEC’s use of electronic media for voter-education, as well as door-to-door and mass voter-education conducted in churches or other public gatherings as ‘very helpful’.
On election day, the same Catholic bishops hailed ZEC for a generally smooth conduct of elections.
The CCJPZ had deployed 835 election day observers.
“Counting of votes in most polling stations was peaceful and started immediately after the close of polls at 7pm according to the Electoral Act,” Bishop Nyandoro said.
Then comes the sudden u-turn as shown in their latest report.
It is contrary to their pre-election pastoral letters and election day statements.
One wonders how the same report would have read had Nelson Chamisa and MDC Alliance miraculously won the elections.
Upon confirmation, by ZEC, that ZANU PF and President Emmerson Mnangagwa had won, the Catholic bishops were primed for disputes.
On the day results were announced, Bishop Nyandoro said: “The conference will set up a mediation that will assist the church to help with the situation, should election results be contested.
There is need for a holistic national peace and reconciliation process that goes beyond electoral disputes.”
Lest readers forget, it was the same CCJPZ that published a report, ‘Breaking the Silence Building True Peace,’ in 1997, on the post-independence disturbances known as ‘Gukurahundi’, alleging 20 000 people were killed in Matabeleland.
David Coltart, a former Rhodesian soldier and MDC stalwart wrote the report and makes no secret of it.
The report is premised on two worrying myths – that the disturbances were confined to Matabeleland and that 20 000 people were killed.
The fact is, the disturbances spilled as far inland as Msengezi in Mashonaland West, less than 100km from Harare and more than 300km from Matabeleland.
To attempt to confine the disturbances to Matabeleland amplifies the myth of the ethnic differences between the Shonas and the Ndebeles, a strategy that white control thrives on.
Rhodes used it to occupy the country and the Catholic Church’s Fr Nigel Johnson, who is also the Centre for Innovation and Technology (CITE) ‘godfather’, knows this too well.
The second myth is about the staggering figure of 20 000 killed as stated in their report.
The figure has now been doubled by Bulawayo-based CITE leader Zenzele Ndebele to 40 000 in his latest documentary Gukurahundi Genocide: 36 Years Later.
This is not surprising, because Ndebele, as stated in our recent publication, is Fr Johnson’s ‘begotten’ son.
It’s alleged stand number 45 Moffat Avenue, Hillside, Bulawayo, the core of Ndebele’s operations, is a ‘gift’ from Fr Johnson.
It’s our understanding that when Fr Johnson was recalled to Harare on January 1 2015, to take up a newly-created post of Development and Communications director for the Jesuits of Zimbabwe and to be assistant pastor of Our Lady of the Wayside parish in Mount Pleasant, he left his house (which had a recording studio) to Ndebele.
The CCJPZ and Ndebele have inflated the figures without taking into account the entire Zimbabwe liberation war, from 1966 to 1980, claimed about 50 000 lives.
Pundits contend the figure (20 000) is a myth cooked up by Coltart and the Catholic Church to heighten the misconstrued perception of Ndebeles as victims of Shonas.
Some independent analysts put the figure of people who died during the disturbances at 2 000.
Fr Biehler passed on the baton-stick and it has now changed many hands.
Bishop Nyandoro – the man whose name is appended to the report of the July 30 2018 harmonised elections — has a lot of explaining to do.
Perhaps he is enjoying politics and forgetting to deal with numerous scandals rocking the Catholic Church.
It would be refreshing to get a comprehensive report from these so-called clergymen detailing unsolved cases of sodomy, mostly of minors, a public secret that the mother Church has failed to hide from public scrutiny.
If it’s true that Pope Francis once said: “One in 50 priests is a paedophile,” then Bishop Nyandoro and the likes of Fr Wemter and Fr Johnson, among others, have a lot of work in their scandalous institution instead of dabbling in politics.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest articles

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

The contentious issue of race

 By Nthungo YaAfrika AS much as Africans would want to have closure to many of...

More like this

Kariba Municipality commits to President’s service delivery blueprint

By Kundai Marunya IT is rare to find opposition-controlled urban councils throwing their weight on...

The resurgence of Theileriosis in 2024 

THE issues of global changes, climate change and tick-borne diseases cannot be ignored, given...

Britain haunted by its hostile policy on Zimbabwe

TWO critical lessons drawn from the recent debate on Zimbabwe in the British House...

Discover more from Celebrating Being Zimbabwean

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading