{"id":170,"date":"2007-09-12T10:37:54","date_gmt":"2007-09-12T10:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html"},"modified":"2007-09-12T10:37:54","modified_gmt":"2007-09-12T10:37:54","slug":"allen-on-ncube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html","title":{"rendered":"Allen on Ncube"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bringing it all together – what we know, at least. <\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

Reports of an alleged tryst between Ncube and Rosemary Sibanda, a parish secretary in the Bulawayo cathedral, first surfaced in the Mugabe-controlled press in mid-July. Grainy still photos and video, apparently obtained from a hidden camera in the archbishop\u2019s residence, show Sibanda in bed with a man identified by the state-run press as Ncube. The images, however, are of poor quality, and most experts believe positive identification is impossible.
\nNcube has rejected the charges, though so far without an unambiguous denial of any relationship with Sibanda. Onesimus Sibanda, the woman\u2019s husband, has filed a 20 billion dollar lawsuit against Ncube in the Zimbabwean currency, estimated to be worth about $80,000 in terms of real value.
\nIn a statement yesterday, the archbishop said he had resigned in order to face the charges \u201cas Pius Ncube, an individual, not that the holy Catholic Church of God should seem to be on trial because I am its head.\u201d Ncube said he would devote himself to a new charity group, the Zimbabwe Humanitarian Support Trust, intended to bring food and medical relief to the country\u2019s poor.
\nThe case has rapidly become a Rorschach test for public opinion, with various parties drawing conclusions even in the absence of conclusive evidence. Pro-Mugabe media assert that Ncube has been disgraced; Zimbabwe\u2019s information minister, Bright Matonga, yesterday said Ncube\u2019s resignation is \u201cproof of his guilt, and we hope that God will forgive his sins.\u201d
\nSupporters of the archbishop, meanwhile, claim the charges amount to a smear campaign. Ncube said yesterday he was the victim of \u201ca state-driven vicious attack not only on myself, but, by proxy, on the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe.\u201d
\nSome Western observers seem initially inclined to take the reports seriously \u2013 based either on generalized perceptions that clerical celibacy is only spottily enforced in Africa, or as an extension of sexual abuse scandals in the United States and elsewhere. Some Africans, meanwhile, see the clash between Mugabe and Ncube in tribal terms, since Mugabe is a member of one of the two main rival ethnic groups in Zimbabwe, the Shona, while Ncube comes from the other, the Ndebele. According to this school of thought, pro-Mugabe Shona tribesman conspired to frame Ncube.
\nIt hasn\u2019t helped matters that a private detective purportedly hired by the husband to investigate the alleged affair is a Shona tribesman, Ernest Tekere, who is also a former employee of Mugabe\u2019s Central Intelligence Organization reportedly linked to anti-Ndebele atrocities in the 1980s. Some observers believe Tekere was actually put on the case by Mugabe in order to discredit Ncube.
\nNcube yesterday told Corriere della Sera<\/em>, Italy\u2019s leading newspaper, that he would \u201cnever admit\u201d that the photos are authentic. Ncube also said that he would not have resigned on his own, but did so in obedience to a request from Benedict XVI.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bringing it all together – what we know, at least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nAllen on Ncube - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Allen on Ncube - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bringing it all together – what we know, at least.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-09-12T10:37:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Allen on Ncube - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Allen on Ncube - Via Media","og_description":"Bringing it all together – what we know, at least.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2007-09-12T10:37:54+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html","name":"Allen on Ncube - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-09-12T10:37:54+00:00","dateModified":"2007-09-12T10:37:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/09\/allen-on-ncube.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Allen on Ncube"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}