[Zope] Python 2.3.3 on RedHat 7.3

Is Python 2.3.3 a pre-requirement for Zope 2.7 ? It looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet and upgrade Zope, but my attempts to get the latest Python installed on RedHat 7.3 have been unsuccessfull so far. Has anyone managed it? I get a number of errors when running configure and can't find a precompiled RPM for RH 7.3. -- John