ANGLICAN-INFORMATION reports that further to our release on 12th November about maverick Bishop Nolbert Kunonga’s claims that the priests and people of the diocese of Botswana have passed a vote of no confidence in Bishop Trevor Mwamba.

The Diocesan Secretary of the Anglican Diocese of Botswana has now issued the following statement by way of clarification:
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF BOTSWANA
15th November, 2007

The Diocese of Botswana has NOT passed a vote of ‘no confidence’ in their Bishop
As the Diocesan Secretary, I would like to clarify recent media articles, especially the one that appeared in The Mmegi Monitor on Monday 12th November 2007 (as reported by ANGLICAN-INFORMATION).
Firstly, it is important to note that any policies or positions made outside the Anglican Church Diocesan Synod or Diocesan Standing Committee are not policies or positions of the Anglican Diocese of Botswana.
The Anglican Church, Diocese of Botswana, has procedures and structures about policy matters. The Diocese is governed by the Diocesan Synod, which is a meeting of representatives of all Church structures. The only organ that legitimately represents the Diocese between Synods is the Diocesan Standing Committee. Legitimate representative bodies are elected at Synod or appointed by the Diocesan Standing Committee. (The Kunonga meeting at St Stephen’s, Francistown was in fact a private meeting, not a Synod as implied by the Mmegi newpaper)

Therefore, the claim that the “Diocese of Botswana has passed a vote of ‘no confidence’ in Bishop Musonda Trevor Mwamba” is not at all true. The Mmegi Monitor article reports that the clergy and laity have passed a vote of no confidence on Bishop Musonda Mwamba over his “pro-homosexuality stand”. The Diocese of Botswana has not passed a vote of ‘no confidence’ in their Bishop, Bishop Mwamba is still very much Bishop of Botswana.

Secondly, within the Anglican Communion the world over it is unheard of that a Bishop from another Diocese could enter the jurisdiction of another Bishop and hold a meeting without his invitation. The article reports that Bishop Kunonga, who was Bishop of Harare until September 2007, visited Botswana and held a meeting with the clergy and laity at St Stephen’s parish, outside Francistown. This was not a legitimate meeting of any of the structures of the Diocese of Botswana. Whatever was decided in that meeting does not bind the Diocese of Botswana in anyway.

Thirdly, Bishop Mwamba is by no means pro-homosexual as the article purports. He has on a number of occasions stated that he stands by the Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10, which states that it rejects homosexual practice as incompatible with scripture and calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all, irrespective of sexual orientation. This is the stand of the Province, Diocese and the Bishop.

Fourthly, please note that the source of the article is not local, it appeared in the Zimbabwe Sunday Mail on 4th November 2007. We are not aware what the Zimbabwean paper intended when they wrote about the Diocese of Botswana without our input.

Lastly, the Bishop still stands by his position that Africa has too many problems (poverty, HIV and AIDS, poor governance, unemployment, etc) to sort out than to spend a lot of time and energy on homosexuality issues, which do not impact on the day-to-day lives of many struggling African people. (Exactly as said by the Archbishops and Bishops at the recent Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa- CAPA- meeting)

Our office is concerned about the number of articles published without our input. Our input is important because the public has to get balanced and clear stories on any matters about the Anglican Diocese of Botswana church.
SIGNED:
Fr. Benjamin T. Moleko,
Diocesan Secretary

ANGLICAN-INFORMATION observes that it was in fact only a few disaffected people who Bishop Kunonga met in Francistown. Nevertheless, he continues his noisy attempts to seduce factions away from their dioceses in the Central African Province.

Latest anecdotal reports from reliable sources indicate that whilst the bishop – elect is still prevented from taking up his position in the diocese of Lake Malawi, at least one priest from that diocese has already written to the acting Dean of the Province to inform him that he and his parish are leaving for another Province – presumed to be the rival establishment that Kunonga is attempting to set up.

As there are priests who are becoming increasingly disaffected in the Province of Central Africa as a result of poor leadership and example the Kunonga option is increasingly tempting them to secede. The current Episcopal authorities seem impotent to deal with a growing disillusionment amongst priests and people. This can ultimately be traced back to the struggles in the American Episcopal Church and schismatic American influence on the outgoing Archiepiscopal regime which has distorted perceptions and caused mayhem.

Meanwhile things are not looking any better in Zimbabwe itself, which has today achieved the dubious distinction of topping 10,000% inflation.

A word of caution - since the Zimbabwe ‘Interception of Communications Bill, 2006’ e-mail traffic to Zimbabwe is now closely monitored by Chinese built software so great care is advised for any of our readers currently contacting friends or colleagues there. Any ‘hostile’ or ‘political’ key words are picked up by monitoring programmes and your friends and those you communicate with may be in trouble if they are revealed to have received ‘unwarranted’ communications.

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