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Archbishop Tutu Reflects

Episcopal News Service. May 5, 1988 [88089]

Margaret Larom, Mission Information Officer, Episcopal Church Center

NEW YORK (DPS, May 5) -- "You have just seen, you have just heard, you have just touched, a Man of Peace!" exulted Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning on May 3 as members of the Episcopal Church Center staff exchanged the peace with Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the noontime Eucharist.

With unquenchable joy and irrepressible humor, the diminutive Metropolitan of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa went through the day testifying to his faith in God and his love for the "family" of the Church. "When we seem courageous, it is because you are faithful in your witness where you are!

"Probably it is given to us, who are in situations of injustice and oppression, to savor and appreciate in ways not given to those in more comfortable circumstances, what it means to belong to a Church," he explained. He affirmed the love and partnership within the Anglican Communion, especially as "incarnated" recently by the attendance of Bishop Mark Dyer of Bethlehem at the CPSA Bishops' Synod in Namibia; ECUSA's participation in the Partners in Mission consultation last November, and the 5-day retreat he shared just last week with a dozen bishops from the U.S., Canada and the West Indies.

While he expressed gratitude to those who have urged Congress to pass anti-apartheid legislation, he had sharp words for the U.S. Administration. "What we can't understand is how wonderful people like the Americans, who love freedom, can support a government as repressive as this [South Africa], a government which detains children, which excludes 70 percent of its population from participating in the political process, that has killed 2000 people since 1984 and uprooted 3.5 million."

Presiding Bishop Browning reminded writers and editors attending a press conference earlier in the day that the Executive Council passed a resolution in February calling on the U.S. to break diplomatic relations with South Africa. "We will continue to press the seriousness of that resolution through our Washington office," Bishop Browning declared. "Our relationship with Archbishop Tutu is so close," he said. "We are communicating almost on a daily basis, and we will continue to do so."

Archbishop Tutu was asked for his views on the ordination of women. "I believe very firmly in the ordination of women; I said so at Lambeth in 1978. A Church is desperately impoverished when women have been barred from ordination. Those of us who've experienced injustice and oppression understand perfectly well how women have felt," he said.

As for women in the episcopate: "Ours is a threefold ministry. Once you say women can become priests, there is no logical reason why they can't become bishops." But, Archbishop Tutu cautioned, "we need to look at the koinonia of this, too. We shouldn't take a step which might have horrendous consequences" in the wider Communion.

Archbishop Tutu briefly touched on the frustration of dealing with "knee-jerk" reactions to Communism. "Right-wing repressive governments can get away with murder by saying they're fighting Communism -- and they do!" he exclaimed, citing South Africa as a "prime example." "RENAMO [the rebel group fighting against the government in Mozambique] have carried out the most awful atrocities, yet there are people in your Senate who are praising them!"

Responding movingly to a question about his journey into faith, he spoke at length about Trevor Huddleston and his "incredible compassion, coming to see a 12-year-old [Tutu, suffering from tuberculosis], in the hospital every week for nearly two years."

"It's only later you realize something that other people might have considered pretty insignificant was a growing experience for you," he mused. "I remember when I was nine, standing on a balcony of the hospital where my mother, an uneducated domestic, worked. This white man went past, and doffed his hat to my mother. I just couldn't handle this.... It turned out to be Trevor."

More than once during his day at the Church Center, Archbishop Tutu jubilantly expressed his conviction that apartheid will be overthrown in South Africa. "There is no doubt at all about the outcome of our struggle," he smiled. "I just know it's going to be all right. Why? Well, those who are for us are so many times more than those who are against us!"