Zimbabwe church leaders seek forgiveness, call for reconciliation

Leaders of the Roman Catholic Bishops Conference, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and Evangelical Fellowship are asking for forgiveness for failing their nation as it slid into what they called "a sense of national despair and loss of hope."

In a recent report issued to congregations across the country, the clerics said principles of peace, justice, forgiveness and honesty had degenerated and that even some church leaders "have been accomplices in some of the evils that have brought our nation to this condition."

"Clearly we did not do enough as churches to defend these values and raise an alarm at the appropriate time," they said. "We confess we have failed because we have not been able to speak with one voice."

The churches are seeking to foster free debate on issues such as the need for reforms in draconian security and media laws, freedom of expression and tolerance along with constitutional reform to protect human rights and curb powers both of the government and President Robert Mugabe. South African Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu, an Anglican archbishop, has called Mugabe "a cartoon figure of an archetypical African dictator."

Corruption and skewed economic policies have plunged the majority of Zimbabweans into poverty, and has led to an upsurge in racial and cultural intolerance that marginalized minorities and other social groups.

The church report, calling for a new "national vision," said churches only now were beginning to wake up to their role in healing six years of social, political and economic turmoil. Christians comprise 80 percent of the population.

"In the short term, this involves engaging the government with the purpose of helping to end the present crisis and quickly return the nation to some normalcy," the report said.

Church leaders asked their countrymen, including those in political office, to collectively reflect on "our dire national situation and the toll it is having ... on our families, the future of our children and of our nation."