Meet an African: Archbishop John Sentamu

With this series of posts, I want to write about notable Africans not only in Africa but elsewhere across the globe.

Such as John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, the second highest-ranking priest in the Church of England. (Sentamu’s full title is “The Most Reverend and Right Honourable the Lord Archbishop of York.”)

The Anglican Communion has an estimated 80 million members worldwide... with more than half of them in Africa.

Archbishop Sentamu was born in Uganda, earned a law degree there and practiced law. Then he emigrated to England in 1974... after being jailed for his opposition to Idi Amin.

In England, Sentamu earned undergraduate and advanced degrees in theology from Cambridge, and he was ordained a priest in 1979.

Since becoming archbishop, Sentamu has been an outspoken critic of Robert Mugabe, the dictator of Zimbabwe. In the 9-minute video clip below, recorded last month, Archbishop Sentamu describes Mugabe as sort of the second coming of Idi Amin:

“He has done exactly what Amin did. And because he is very educated and speaks well, people think he has not been brutal. ... [Mugabe] has been a very very very very vicious ruler, really. Very brutal against his own people.”