With a statement issued on 15 July, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, president of the German Bishops’ Conference, has expressed the solidarity of the German episcopate to the president of the Bishops’ Conference of Zimbabwe, Bishop Michael D. Bhasera, in protest against the provisions taken by the government of Zimbabwe in recent weeks, the so-called “Operation Restore Order”. As a result of this provision, over 200,000 have been evicted from their own homes, and up to 30,000 itinerant workers have been arrested. The operation also caused the destruction of a hospital and of a kindergarten run by the German Dominican Sisters. With its pastoral letter of 16 June with the title “The Cry of the Poor”, the Bishops’ Conference of Zimbabwe had strongly criticised the provision that deprives the weakest sections of the population of any means of livelihood and leaves them homeless and bereft in the middle of winter. In his statement Lehmann declares the “express support” of the German bishops for “the contents and requests of the pastoral letter ‘The Cry of the Poor'”, and unites their condemnation with that expressed by the bishops of the African country for “the great injustice towards the poor”. “The way of violence chosen by the government cannot conduce to the rule of law and public order in Zimbabwe. It will only bring further suffering and economic crisis”, says Lehmann. “As the Church, we have the task to be advocates of the poor and the defenceless. We will therefore do all in our power to ensure that the wishes of the bishops of Zimbabwe be shared in German society”.
