JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Anglican Church leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu announced his support Friday for the ordination of women as priests in a split with established church policy.
'As a victim of injustice myself, I experience fully well how women feel,' the Nobel Peace Prize-winning church leader and apartheid foe told reporters in Cape Town, where he was enthroned as archbishop last month.
Tutu, the first black leader of the nation's 2 million Anglicans, told a news conference that the belief that humans were created in the image of God did not imply 'something different for women.'
'The fullest possible expression of the divine image is man and woman together,' he said.
South Africa's Anglican Church, officially known as the Church of the Province of South Africa, does not ordain women into the priesthood. The issue is under debate within the church, the fourth largest in South Africa.
Tutu's rise to the head of the church upset some white members who oppose his call for international economic sanctions against the white-minority Pretoria government to protest its policies of racial segregation, known as apartheid.
In Johannesburg, the largely black Media Workers Association of South Africa said the government barred a prominent foreign journalist from attending its congress Oct. 17-19.
Thami Mazwai, the group's spokesman, said the government refused a visa to Hans Larsen, secretary-general of the International Federation of Journalists and he warned the ban on Larsen will have repercussions.
'South Africa must brace itself for more radical action from journalist organizations throughout the Western world and those in Africa who belong to the IFJ,' he said.
'The government is aware that leaders like Hans Larsen will see through the lies and it has thus stopped him from coming to South Africa,' he said. In a separate statement, the Media Workers group said, 'The refusal comes when the government is telling the world that there is reform taking place in this country.
'If there was any reform, then the government would have been happy to show it off to a leader of the biggest federation of journalists in the world.'
The media in South Africa has been operating under restrictions issued under a state of emergency imposed last June 12 by President Pieter Botha in a bid to stem a two-year wave of racial violence. The restrictions in part prevent journalists from reporting on the actions of security forces unless issued by the official Bureau of Information.
The decision to deny a visa to Larsen comes on the tail of a crackdown on the United Democratic Front, or UDF, a coalition political organization hit by a government ban on overseas funding Thursday. It is the largest legal opposition group in South Africa.
Botha declared the 2.5 million-member opposition movement an 'affected organization,' barred from receiving money from foreign sources.
UDF Treasurer Azhar Cachalia expressed fears the government action is only the first salvo in a campaign to destroy the movement and that further 'draconian' steps soon will be taken.
The UDF was formed on Aug. 10, 1983, and incorporates some 850 affiliated religious, sports, cultural and political organizations opposed to the government policy of racial segregation.
