Leo XIV Appoints Archbishop of Cape Town - Considers Protestants Part of the Church
Early Life and Formation
Sithembele Anton Sipuka was born on April 27, 1960, in Idutywa (Dutywa) in the Eastern Cape. Before entering seminary, he worked for two years as a post office clerk.
He was ordained a priest in 1988 for the Diocese of Queenstown, six years before the end of apartheid.
In 1992, he was sent to Rome to study at the Pontifical Urban University.
Rising Star in the Church
In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Sipuka as Bishop of Mthatha. The diocese is rural, located in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, and has fewer than 40,000 Catholics.
Cape Town, by contrast, is one of South Africa’s most prominent sees, with approximately 280,000 Catholics.
From 2019 to 2023, Bishop Sipuka served as President of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
In July 2025, Pope Leo XIV appointed him a member of the Vatican Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.
Leadership of Ecumenical Council of Churches
In October 2024, Sipuka was elected President of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), becoming the first Catholic—let alone a bishop—to hold that office.
The SACC is an ecumenical body with deep historical roots in the anti-apartheid political struggle. The organization is highly left-wing political, ideologically driven, heavily dependent on foreign funding, and has been accused of mismanaging donor funds and excluding faithful evangelicals.
The notorious homosexual activist Desmond Tutu, who held the title “Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town,” was its most famous official and served as General Secretary of the SACC.
Ecumenical Preaching and “Rainbow” Imagery
In June 2025, Monsignor Sipuka preached a homily as SACC President at an ecumenical prayer service held in the Protestant Grace Bible Church in Soweto.
He began with what he called a “beautiful imagery”: “Archbishop Tutu famously described our country as a ‘rainbow nation.’”
In the same homily, Monsignor Sipuka attributed a unique political and reconciliatory role to the South African Council of Churches: “Our task as the Church is to help people envision and believe in possibilities they can't currently see, where racial reconciliation actually works, and where justice and peace coexist.”
Monsignor Sipuka abused the term “the Church” including Protestants also on other occasions.
At a meeting of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Johannesburg in June 2025, Sipuka expressed hope that “the Church can still act as a bridge-builder, a voice for the voiceless, and a bearer of Christ’s good news to a world in desperate need.”
Paganism and Ancestral Cosmology
His former Diocese of Mthatha is overwhelmingly Xhosa-speaking, rural, poor, and deeply shaped by ancestral cosmology.
Practices commonly reported even among clergy include participation in ancestral rituals at funerals and pagan healing practices known as amagqirha or ubungoma.
Throughout his years as bishop, Monsignor Sipuka tolerated these practices.
In January 2022, the South African bishops began study groups examining the pagan rite of ubungoma.
In January 2023, Bishop Sipuka told a local radio: “Now we are dealing with Ubungoma, which we hope to complete the research by the end of this year and then hopefully by next year maybe we can be able to give some direction.”
During the bishops’ conference in August 2025, Bishop Sipuka finally stated—verbally only—that: “traditional practices like ubungoma offer spiritual power that competes with our loyalty and obedience to Christ.”
Catholic priests in South Africa largely ignored the bishops’ warning and continued engaging in pagan practices.
In September 2025, the territorial bishops of the KwaZulu-Natal region attempted to enforce the decision and announced punishments for priests involved in pagan rites.
Bishop Sipuka’s see, Mthatha, lies in the Eastern Cape. This territory did not take action against ubungoma.
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