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| Archbishop Albert Chama |
Not a surprise, perhaps, but Albert Chama, Bishop of the Diocese of Northern Zambia, has been elected Archbishop of the Province of Central Africa.
Although officially Dean of the Province, Chama has previously described himself as the 'Acting' Archbishop. He has been seen as a protégé of the previous Archbishop Bernard Malango.
Chama attended the Primates' Meeting in Dublin in his role as Dean, thus dissociating himself from the GAFCON absentees despite his earlier attendance at last year's Global South Encounter.
The Province has a troubled and divided history. The Church in Malawi is not a happy place - and Chama has history in relation to that unhappiness.
The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe is still subject to systematic harassment and violence:
It is believed the violence against the clergymen is being orchestrated by the controversial faction of the Anglican Church led by Dr. Nolbert Kunonga, an ardent ZANU PF supporter.
On Monday, the Right Reverend Chad Gandiya, who is the current Bishop of Harare, told SW Radio Africa: “One of my fellow bishops was approached by two people who told him that they had come to kill him and that the mission is to kill all the Anglican bishops; and that is why I said we are an endangered species because from that conversation with my colleagues we are all to be killed.”
“All he was told was this had something to do with the church and that we were stumbling blocks to Dr. Kunonga’s ambition of running the whole Anglican church in Zimbabwe,” Gandiya said.
Just days after the threats a member of the mainstream church headed by Gandiya was brutally murdered last week.
“People came at night on a Friday. They raped her, they cut her mouth and genitals, and pierced various parts of her body,” Gandiya explained, “we were told it is something to do with the fact she belonged to our church, and so that leaves us to speculate.” The Zimbawean 22 Feb.
“People came at night on a Friday. They raped her, they cut her mouth and genitals, and pierced various parts of her body,” Gandiya explained, “we were told it is something to do with the fact she belonged to our church, and so that leaves us to speculate.”
ReplyDeleteMay we hear from Dr. Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates of The Anglican Communion and the CAPA Bishops? Where are these men, and they mostly are men, when we NEED THEIR SPIRITUAL SUPPORT and words of shock, horror and a call for basic DECENCY!
Leonardo, to be fair the ABC and ACO have consistently supported the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe.
ReplyDeleteThey have sometimes spoken publicly but when to do so and what to say is a difficult judgement - it is easy to make things even more difficult.
According to the 'Virtue Online' website, Bishop, now Archbishop, Albert Chama is one of them i.e. Gafcon.
ReplyDeleteLet's think back a few years Chama was as you say the protege of former Archbishop Bernard Malango, who was in turn the one who 'absolved' the infamous Nolbert Kunonga of Zimbabwe, who is in turn implicated, it is said, in the orchestration of violence in Zimbabwe. Chama was put in by Malango when the Bishop of Botswana Trevor Mwamba was sacked for being liberal and trying to resolve the issue of the Lake Malawi election.
Also now (presumably uncomfortably) under Chama is Bishop James Tengatenga of South Malawi and chair of the Anglican Consultative Council.
It's a tangled web.