Obedience to Political Authorities - Zimbabwe

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DL82

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Where are the rights and wrongs in this situation? Is it right for people to rise up against evil dictators when democratic means fail and the economy is so messed up that millions may starve to death through government corruption?

Surely obedience has limits, and those limits are not just religious (being forced to renounce our faith in words) but also social (being made to do the bidding of men of hate, which is contrary to the practice of Christian love in our faith). Of course war, and especially civil war, brings terrible evils of its’ own, but the Catholic Church doesn’t teach total pacifism, so where do the boundaries lie, and who decides when those boundaries have been crossed?

The Church used to think nothing of telling people when those boundaries had been crossed, excommunicating kings and rulers who were enemies of Christ (e.g. Henry II when his knights murdered his Archbishop, St Thomas a Beckett) and removing the duty of obedience from their former subjects. I realise the Vatican can’t easily go around doing this today, but can’t the Church in a country or a region speak out against these kinds of injustice?
 
Archbishop Ncube did indeed take a very strong stand against the ZANU (PF) regime of Mugabe. Mugabe then threatened the Church in no uncertain terms. The Archbishop was exposed as having an affair with a member of his diocese. The Archbishop admitted to the affair, resigned his from his position and apologised for his behaviour. I believe that the exposure was an act of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) of Zimbabwe.
Since his resignation, the Church in Zimbabwe has remained rather quiet.

The UN is supposed to be responsible for dealing with errant regimes, but as we saw in the case of Rwanda, it was allowed to escalate to a genocide before any action to resolve the situation.

Given the role of rebel groups (or so-called “liberation movements”) they promise freedom and democracy, tending to using terror tactics to achieve power

Once in power, they are worse than their predecessors. Examples of this include Rhodesia which became Zimbabwe and South Africa which had the political system of apartheid. In both cases they, in Marxist tradition, used religion, faith and terrorism as tools - the results: look at Zimbabwe; in South Africa, the country’s infrastructure is slowly been destroyed by corrupt officials loyal to the new regime.

A consequence of these two examples is massive emigration of skilled people, leaving to environs where they can live in peace and justice.

I believe the Church internationally may be able to criticise and propose solution, but it is difficult to stop the evil in these regimes.
 
Aquinas says that revolution is far more preferable than injustice.
 
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