NOTICE the book in Robert Mugabe’s hand when he was hastily sworn for a sixth term as President of Zimbabwe? Yes folks, the lunatic dictator – a devout Catholic – was clutching a Bible.
Mugabe is 84-years-old, and with any luck will soon be dead. And when he does finally turn up his toes, what’s the bet that religious revisionists, shaking their heads over the destruction he wreaked on his country, will vilify him as an atheist – just as they do now in respect of that other great Catholic dictator, Adolf Hitler.
For the moment though, Mugabe remains in good standing with the Roman Catholic Church, a point emphasised by Christopher Hitchens in a piece he recently wrote in Slate Magazine.
He asked:
What is it going to take before the Roman Catholic Church has anything to say about the conduct of this member of its flock? Mugabe has been a devout Catholic ever since his days in a mission school in what was then colonial Rhodesia, and one is forced to wonder what he tells his priest when he is asked if he has anything he’d like to confess.
Attention was drawn to the Hitchens piece by the Roman Catholic Blog – and drew this response in its comments section by an arrogant Catholic wacko – and homophobe to boot – called Zeth, who leaped to Mugabe’s defence with these breathtaking words:
Mugabe is a hero. He liberated his people from white protestant serfdom. He fought the liberals and heretics who tried to destroy Zimbabwe. He outlawed sodomy. And he is still fighting against US imperialism and the traitors who seek to destroy the country from within … At the same time he is a devout and pious Catholic. Mugabe is truly a chivalric knight of our age … There is no injustice in what President Mugabe is doing. He is enforcing godly leadership on his people, just like King David did in Israel. Authoritarianism is of God.
He adds:
The Church has always supported righteous dictators such as Saint Emperor Constantine, Charlemagne, King Filipe II, General Franco and others. Democracy is ungodly and deserve to be fought, it has destroyed everything we once loved and made the population ungodly and sinful.
Why do the words “crazy as a shithouse rat” spring to mind?
Or could Zeth be a wind-up artist indulging in some heavy irony?
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
