An LATimes story on a prelate mentioned here before: Archbishop Ncube of Zimbabwe

Ncube, who was born in 1946 in southern Zimbabwe, is the son of a peasant cattle farmer. His mother left to work in Bulawayo as a servant when Ncube was a boy, and he was brought up by his aunt, a fiercely religious woman. Ncube believes that living with his aunt’s family and attending a school run by a German nun named Sister Desideria set his moral compass in life.

"My auntie was a very religious person. She would not tolerate any nonsense from anyone. Anything dirty or bad or dishonest, my aunt would stand her ground and rebuke it," he said. Sister Desideria "insisted on integrity, holiness, self-respect and keeping God’s law. She was quite tough on discipline."

Ncube entered a seminary outside Harare at 21, was ordained in 1973 and was studying theology in Rome when Zimbabwe won independence in 1980. He was appointed archbishop in 1997.

In Zimbabwe’s war for liberation from white minority rule, Ncube was troubled by the brash and often violent young fighters who moved through villages demanding to be fed and protected. But his attitude reached a turning point in 1983 and ’84 when Mugabe unleashed North Korean-trained troops against Ncube’s Ndebele ethnic group in southern Zimbabwe.

The U.S. State Department reported that as many as 20,000 civilians died in the campaign, which was called Gukurahundi, meaning a strong wind that blows away chaff.