It is 6.30 a.m. on a cool autumn morning and the streets of Bulawayo – washed by a recent shower – are almost deserted, for this is a public holiday. Good Friday in fact when, in place of the usual bustle of commercial activity, we shall soon be seeing a good turnout of the faithful to religious services across the city – in what is after all a nation noted for its religious observance. But it is too early for that now. Instead, for the moment, all we can see is a few cars and a handful of people gathering in the car park of the city’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, St Mary’s.

Slowly the activity in the car park increases. More early risers arrive. A large cross appears on the scene and a number of smaller crude, wooden crosses alongside. A few clergy assemble, including one in vestments which mark him out as an archbishop. Someone is calling the small crowd of 30 or so to order. The archbishop offers up a short prayer. He is given one of the smaller crosses to carry and he sets off, leading the others on a Good Friday procession across the rain-washed streets of the city.

Roy Bennett (left) Archbishop Pius Ncube (right)

On Saturday 5th February, far beyond the reach of any reporters or the probing lens of any cameras, an event of major significance took place. In the prison compound at Mutoko, some 140 kilometers north-east of Harare, one of Zimbabwe's leading clerics and outspoken critic of the Mugabe regime, met and talked with a prominent member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), now a prisoner of conscience incarcerated by that regime. Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo met Roy Bennett the imprisoned opposition MDC member of parliament for the Chimanimani constituency.