Bishop Pius Ncube, the Zimbabwean cleric and opponent of President Robert Mugabe who was accused of adultery after what apparently was a government sex sting in July, said Tuesday that the Vatican had accepted his resignation as Roman Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo.
In a statement, Ncube said he was stepping down “to spare my fellow bishops and the body of the Church any further attacks.” The Vatican confirmed the announcement in a one-sentence statement, citing a church canon that “earnestly” requests the resignation of a bishop “who has become less able to fulfill his office because of ill health or some other grave cause.”
Ncube said he would remain a Catholic bishop. Some supporters predicted his resignation would leave him freer to raise the humanitarian and human-rights issues that had become the preoccupation of his work as archbishop in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city.
But some also expressed surprise that the Vatican so willingly accepted his resignation, which was tendered days after the sexual allegations became public. While the church speaks out regularly on humanitarian issues, they said, it has had relatively little to say about the social and economic collapse in Zimbabwe, whose leader, Mugabe, is himself a Catholic.
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Some also noted that Catholic priests throughout Africa have not rigidly adhered to the Vatican’s demands of celibacy in the priesthood, and that some have openly had sexual relationships and even raised families.
Under Pope Benedict XVI, the church has recognized the spotty record of some African priests in maintaining their vows of celibacy, but has yet to deal consistently with the matter. The Vatican has begun to take a consistently harder line, however, against the involvement of priests in politics.
Ncube has been among Mugabe’s harshest critics, saying once that he was prepared to man the front lines of protests against his rule, and on another occasion that he was praying for Mugabe to die.
“It would be useful for the Catholic Church itself to make a comment on this,” said Selvan Chetty, the deputy director of the Solidarity Peace Trust, a South Africa-based group, headed by Ncube, that has campaigned on human-rights issues in Zimbabwe. “It does seem a little surprising, given all the things going on in Zimbabwe at the moment about which the church has had little to say.”
Ncube has been under siege by Mugabe’s government since mid-July, when state-controlled television and newspapers showed secretly taped images that appeared to show him in bed with a woman.
The woman’s husband later filed a lawsuit that seeks 20 billion Zimbabwean dollars in damages from Ncube for adultery. The bishop has said he will defend himself against the charge, but has not addressed allegations that he broke his vow of celibacy.