BishopAccountability.org
	Archbishop Planning Presidential Race in Zimbabwe? Catholic World News September 18, 2007 http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=53595 Harare - Archbishop Pius Ncube, who resigned last week as head of Zimbabwe's Bulawayo archdiocese, may run for the presidency of the African country, according to an online report in the Christian Post. The archbishop, whose resignation was accepted by Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) on September 11, has been a leading critic of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. He has conferred with other leaders of the country's political opposition about a possible presidential race, the Christian Post reports. After calling for the overthrow of the Mugabe regime earlier this summer, Archbishop Ncube was hit with adultery charges, which were highly publicized in the state-controlled media. The archbishop's supporters say that the charges are a clear effort to silence an enemy of the government and undermine the influence of the Catholic hierarchy, which has been consistently critical of Mugabe. The prospect of a presidential campaign by a Catholic prelate would undoubtedly raise concerns at the Vatican. In February of this year the Vatican announced the suspension of Bishop Fernando Lugo Mendez, the former leader of the San Pedro diocese in Paraguay, after Lugo rejected a Vatican order to end his own presidential race.
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