NCC suffers no show at opening session
The Layman Online, November 10, 1999
CLEVELAND – Desmond Mpilo Tutu, Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, spent November 9 in an Atlanta hospital undergoing surgery following a recurrence of prostate cancer. Tutu was to have been the keynote speaker for the National Council of Churches 50th anniversary meeting in Cleveland, Ohio. NCC President Joan Brown Campbell read a letter from the archbishop during the period in which he had been scheduled to speak to the group.
In his letter Tutu declared the council “a many-splendoured thing.” He lauded the NCC for avoiding “narrow, chauvinistic, inward-looking concerns.” He acknowledged support given by the NCC to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and praised the progress that has been made in his country. “Today we are free,” he said. “We are non-racial and non-sexist … We won a huge, a spectacular victory over evil and injustice … Our victory is your victory.”
Tutu praised the NCC for the variety of its concerns. “You have been involved in Bible translation, in the civil rights movement. You have raised funds for churches that were targets of arson, you have protested against injustice and oppression everywhere, caring about the environment and women’s rights and those of gays and lesbians. You have agitated for the cancellation of international debt burden by poor countries and demonstrated for peace and brought succour and help to the needy.”
Tutu’s inability to appear was a major disappointment to NCC officials, beleaguered with bad press following revelations that their 1999 budget is $3.4 million in the red and that major denominational representatives are dissatisfied with the council’s management practices.