Archbishop Pius Ncube is now living a life of prayer

Pius Ncube

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The head of the Roman Catholic Church Harare Diocese, Archbishop Robert Ndlovu says disgraced Archbishop Pius Ncube is now living a life of prayer.

Ncube, who was President Mugabe’s most vocal critic, was filmed having sex with a married woman and quickly disappeared out of public view. Archbishop Ndlovu said life of celibacy was never easy.
 
“.. as I said there is a human side to all things and sometimes people can exploit that, I wouldn’t know the details of it, you know it was really a private life, how he (Ncube) came to be hooked into that situation, was it something set up, it is very difficult to get, he knows the rest but I always said, I look at myself and say it could happen to me, I am still a human being I can still get attracted to a person of the opposite sex …And we have to also realise that celibacy itself is not an easy life and I   think anyone who tells you it’s an easy life, will not be truthful. Celibacy is not an easy life but is a life that is worth living with the grace of God. It can be, it can be done.”
 
He said Ncube’s case still has a lot of unanswered questions.
 
“Well, as I said the issue of what happened to Archbishop Ncube has a lot of question marks that we still cannot answer. That is why I use the word, was he trapped into that… but you know it had also, some people will still think it had a political dimension, true or false I don’t know.”
 
Ncube confessed to the affair and apologised to the Vatican.
 
 “Yah, but you see he confessed having, it’s not to deny that something happened that he had an affair with her but how it came about. This is what I don’t know and how do you get to that, he is the only one who knows what happened. How he met that woman and how he managed to reach that stage with a married woman for that matter, I don’t know what transpired there. But definitely I would be naïve about it, we have to accept that it scandalised the faithful.”
 
Archbishop Ndlovu said there would always be rotten priests in the church.
 
“You always have problems and a rotten apple here and there because we are human beings and I think action is being taken, a good number of priests have been suspended once they were found out. A good number have just been told to leave the priesthood.
 
“ I know for instance since I came to Harare, I can say more or less with certainty five or six priests have been told to leave the priesthood. And I think two or three were sent on suspension because it depends on the gravity of the matter, some of them are not really (serious offences) but for discipline’s sake we have to do that… But also look at it from this point of view; we are recruiting from a society that we all know. I like to use the term a wounded society, so sometimes these temptations don’t stop because someone has become a priest…”