The amazing life of a Jesuit in Zimbabwe

TED ROGERS: Jesuit, Social Pioneer and AIDS Activist in Zimbabwe. Cluster Publications, Pietermaritzburg, 2012. 324pp. ISBN: 978 187505391 9

Reviewed by Kudzai Taruona

In this amazing memoir by one of Zimbabwe’s most famous priests, Jesuit Father Edward Ted Rogers recalls his mother whom he describes as always kind, thoughtful, very devoted to her religion and a family saint.

He gives a lengthy account of the difficult life that he and his family lived in the 1930s and expresses his disappointment on not being able to go to university after high school. However his stint with the merchant navy during World War II marked the turning point of his life. Off the West African coast German U-boats torpedoed and sank his ship, the MV Alfred Jones. By chance Ted survived.

The ship’s sinking and his survival  by rowing a lifeboat for four days  strongly influenced his desire to become a priest: God must have saved his life for a purpose. With the end of the war, he chose the seminary instead of continuing with the navy.

As Rogers charts the journey of his life, he reveals his great knowledge and memory of events, people and places. If he mentions a building or institution, he will explain its background, who built it, where they got the money, from whom they bought it, and what became of the place later.

He can’t hide his admiration for heroic figures he meets on his journey, among them Archbishop Denis Hurley whom he describes as a star of IMBISA – the Inter-Regional Meeting of Bishops of Southern Africa, of which Fr Rogers was the director for several years. In fact, Fr Rogers shared a birthday with Archbishop Hurley. Like the archbishop, he also became a follower of Teilhard de Chardin. Ted’s own grandfather, like Archbishop Hurley’s father, was a lighthouse keeper.

This book shows Ted to be a Jesuit to the core. It is clear that he is forever grateful to the order for having given him the chance to travel the globe, rub shoulders with the bishops of Southern Africa and cardinals from the Roman curia, meet Pope John Paul II and heads of state. But it is for founding the School of Social Work at the University of Zimbabwe, for being the IMBISA director and for his pioneering Aids activism that Fr Rogers will be specially remembered.

Wherever he went his great strength was in identifying competent and skilled people who could make things happen. Trusted by foreign and local donors he was able to raise the funds needed to establish a multitude of projects during his 51 years in Zimbabwe. His philosophy was always that, if it was good work and needed by the people, the money would come  and it always did.

He admits in retrospect that white Rhodesians (himself included) were taking advantage of the colonial system in Rhodesia and participated to some extent in the privileges of being white in the face of the African population’s grinding poverty, without being sufficiently aware of this. However, he cautions that there were white people who disagreed with Ian Smith’s policies and tried to help lift the educational standards of the local black population.

Fr Rogers was an activist, not a parish priest. So while others were busy with normal pastoral duties, he was empowering the African population to address the social problems that bedevilled them. He feels that his work was not always well understood by some of his colleagues.

With the coming of Independence, he was approached by the then President Canaan Banana to help establish training for ex-combatants from the liberation war to help them return to civilian life, as many had not completed their education. His response was to help start the Kushinga-Phikelela Agricultural Institute.

As the HIV and Aids pandemic was wreaking havoc, he was asked by the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference (ZCBC) to develop a programme. This led to the founding of the Aids Counselling Trust (ACT) being started. His presentations on HIV/Aids to the Southern African bishops were well received and inspired Archbishop Hurley to immediately start an Aids office in his archdiocese.

While admitting that he missed the intimate relationship of marriage and family, he says this choice was necessary for religious life and gave him a certain freedom of action for his work. But he believes that diocesan priests should have the option of marriage before their ordination, as in the Eastern Catholic rites.

At the advanced age of 80 and now living at the Boscombe Jesuit retirement house near Bournemouth, England, Fr Rogers looks back on a life filled with activity, interest and hope.

As he reaches the ninth decade of his life, he is not fit as a fiddle. In fact, he writes, he looks forward to seeing his late mother again  and I don’t think it will be long before that time comes.

Ted Rogers: Jesuit, Social Activist and AIDS Pioneer in Zimbabwe is available at R150 per copy from " target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Cluster Publications.