Episcopal Press and News
South Africa Denies Church Group Visas
Episcopal News Service. January 30, 1986 [86017]
NEW YORK (DPS, Jan. 30) -- Nine members of a National Council of Churches delegation have been denied visas by the South African government. Headed by the council's president, Bishop Philip Cousin, the delegation had been invited by the South African Council of Churches to pay a pastoral visit to South Africa.
The group, which included Episcopal Church Executive Council member Nell Gibson as personal representative of Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning, had planned to leave for South Africa Jan. 5, and to spend Jan. 6-15 in the country. Their departure was delayed by a Jan. 3 Telex to the NCC's Africa Office, informing them that officials in Pretoria had not yet issued visas for the group. Word came from South Africa that the visas had been denied on Jan. 17 -- a week after a U.S. congressional delegation that included clergy returned from South Africa advocating harsher economic sanctions to bring an end to apartheid.
Willis H. Logan, an Episcopalian who serves as director of the NCC Africa Office, said the South African Council of Churches believes that a visit at this time "would be helpful in seeking greater understanding of the situation in South Africa and expressing concern for all of those in South Africa who are affected by the present crisis." He added that the NCC will continue to work to bring about a peaceful resolution of the situation in South Africa and will continue to support the churches in South Africa that are working to bring about a just solution to the South Africa crisis."
According to an Associated Press dispatch from Johannesburg, South Africa's minister of home affairs, Stoffel Botha, said the delegation members were denied visas because "all nine clerics are attached to the NCC, an organization which has close links with terrorist organizations, among others, with the African National Congress."
Botha said the church council "has preconceived ideas concerning South Africa, and it is doubtful whether the visit would contribute to an unbiased opinion regarding South Africa and its problems."
Logan stressed that "The NCC seeks a nonviolent end to the apartheid system in South Africa." He noted that the NCC provides neither money nor goods to the African National Congress.
The South African Council of Churches and its general secretary, Beyers Naude, issued a statement following the denial of visas to the U.S. group, which comments, "The possibility of any Church leader of note being allowed to enter South Africa becomes very remote if the government's test of the granting of visas to overseas Church leaders will depend on their contact with liberation movements. The fact is that at many international gatherings, including ecumenical conferences attended by Church leaders, representatives of the African National Congress are also present. Furthermore, it is well known that a number of overseas Church bodies, in their concern for finding a peaceful solution of South Africa's racial conflict, have, from time to time, had informal discussions with African National Congress leaders." The statement added that the South African government's action in denying the visas "can only lead to further hardening of overseas Church attitudes towards the apartheid rule in South Africa and a stronger support for the African National Congress."
Besides Cousin, who is bishop of the 11th Episcopal District (Jacksonville, Fla.), African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Gibson, who is executive assistant to the bishop, Episcopal Church, Diocese of New York, the delegation was to have included: V. William Thomas Robinson, executive secretary, church development, United Methodist Church, New York City; Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr., director, Office on World Community, Lutheran World Ministries, New York City; the Rev. Warren J. Henseler, secretary for Africa and the Middle East, Reformed Church in America, New York City; the Rev. Barry L. Hopkins, pastor, Saint Memorial Baptist Church, Bryn Mawr, Pa., representing the Progressive National Baptist Convention; the Rev. James Kirkwood, Africa secretary, United Church of Canada, Toronto; the Rev. Daniel Michael Gennarelli, Roman Catholic who is secretary for justice and peace, Scarborough Foreign Mission Society, Toronto, and Maghan Keita, associate director of the NCC Africa Office, New York City.