Canterbury unable to broker food deal

Current Affairs / General Convention

In a sign that there’s increasing division between the Anglican provinces in Africa, here’s a report that tells of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s inability to broker a coordinated response to the increasing levels of famine in Zimbabwe:

“The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has spoken about his failed attempts to use Anglican resources in southern Africa to send food to starving Zimbabweans, ENI reports.

At a meeting of the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, on 1 May, Williams explained that he had spoken with the Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane four years ago about the best approach to help Zimbabwe. Last year, he said he had held talks with central and southern African Anglicans – again asking how best the Anglican Church could help Zimbabwe.

‘The message I had from them was any intervention under the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury would instantly be branded in Zimbabwe as the British government by another name,’ Williams said.

In March this year Dr Williams said he met Bishop Nolbert Kunonga of Harare, a staunch ally of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, ‘to ask him whether he would contemplate not only rediscovering his soul, so to speak, in relation to the Mugabe government, but whether he would contemplate an arrangement which we would willingly broker with the World Food Programme administered through the Anglican church in Zimbabwe. The answer was ‘No’!'”

From here: Independent Catholic News

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