Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a champion of South African Black struggles against Apartheid – the brutal system of racial segregation which fell in 1989 – has passed away at the age of 90, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced in a statement Sunday.
“The passing of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is another chapter of bereavement in our nation’s farewell to a generation of outstanding South Africans who have bequeathed us a liberated South Africa. Desmond Tutu was a patriot without equal; a leader of principle and pragmatism who gave meaning to the biblical insight that faith without works is dead. A man of extraordinary intellect, integrity and invincibility against the forces of apartheid, he was also tender and vulnerable in his compassion for those who had suffered oppression, injustice and violence under apartheid, and oppressed and downtrodden people around the world” said Ramaphosa.
The first Black leader of the Anglican Church in South Africa from 1986 to 1996, Tutu was also an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights internationally. “I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this. I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say, ‘Sorry, I would much rather go to the other place’” said Tutu in 2013.