SANCTIFYING OFFICE

Importance of the Eucharist

Because of his understanding of the Mass as central to the Catholic Faith, Wilfrid Cardinal Napier has prioritized teaching the faithful how to prepare for Mass. In a recent bulletin to his archdiocese, Napier stated that “the Eucharist is, or should be, the central pillar of our Faith and Christian life.”¹Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (June 2018): 37. He encouraged his flock to “make the Church truly the House of God” by “preparing to worship the Father, receive the Body and Blood of the Son, and be filled with the Holy Spirit when leaving the House of God after Mass.” ²Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (June 2018): 37. He continued:

Even where the Tabernacle is in a most prominent place, many Catholics talk and converse as if they were in a hall, not the “House of God!” Often they carry on long conversations, completely unconcerned that there are people nearby who have come to pray, or meditate, or simply sit in the presence of God in His House!³Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (June 2018): 37.

Cardinal Napier understands devotion to the Eucharist as a sign of commitment to the priestly vocation. In a 2018 homily, he warned that “drifting away from the Eucharist” is a sign of lukewarmness in the priestly vocation and that a sign of zeal is “when priests start speaking about the Eucharist [and] they become noticeably energized and upbeat.” He challenged all priests to offer themselves at each Mass, stating that each “priest is more than a presider, more than a social activist”; rather, the “holiness for the priest begins when he becomes the sacrifice that he offers.”

The cardinal also emphasized the role of the deacon in the Mass and encouraged priests, deacons, and parish liturgy committees to consult and implement the appropriate rubrics, rules, and guidelines.

Women Deacons

It does not seem that Napier has directly addressed the issue of women deacons. He has engaged, however, with a group who advocated for ordination of women. In response to a protest by the Women’s Ordination South Africa group in 2001, Cardinal Napier denied the statement put forward by the group — namely, that Pope John Paul II had said “Catholics might no longer even speak about the question of Catholic women priests.” Rather, Napier understood the pope’s view to be that he “did not have the competence to make a decision on the question of women in the priesthood.” From these comments, the cardinal seems to indicate that the pope cannot alter the reservation of ordination to men.

Critical of the Extraordinary Form

Cardinal Napier has been critical of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. In a recent tweet replying to a photo of a Mass in the Extraordinary Form, Cardinal Napier stated:

“Looking at this picture reminds me of my childhood some 70 years ago. That was a time when there was a universe between the Clergy especially Bishops and Lay Faithful! Some might call it the age of supreme Clericalism . To me it’s a reminder of what we should never ever be again!”

In response to a critical reply on Twitter, Cardinal Napier stated that “Jesus was not in the Temple where similar sacred liturgy was celebrated.” Rather, “he was with the people, especially those considered to be outcasts or even worse sinners!” Napier stated that he did not “want the Mass to become a great spectacle, but a memory of Christ’s saving death!” From these comments, it is clear that the cardinal prefers the Novus Ordo because he views it as a better reflection of the active participation of the lay faithful in the liturgy as called for by the Second Vatican Council:

Thank God I live and minister in the Church in Africa, where Christians focus on the need for God pure and simple, where active participation is valued more than what this debate is centered on, vestments and aloofness from the Faithful, the Lay Faithful in particular. I don’t begrudge those who find meaning in the “old time religion”! My plea is that you respect and give freedom to those who follow the mind of the Church as reflected in the Popes who have led the Church through the reforms of the Liturgy!

Inculturation

In discussing the liturgy, Cardinal Napier has also engaged with the difficult, but necessary, process of inculturation. It is not clear where the cardinal draws the boundaries of inculturation. But he has clearly echoed Pope Paul VI’s challenge to make the Catholic Faith more authentically African and the African people more authentically Catholic. In a 2003 interview, Cardinal Napier commented that one would “be surprised at how little of Rome there is in the Roman Catholic Church in South Africa.” For Napier, “the Gospel would become irrelevant” if one did not consider “the way people understand it from their own cultural point of view and express their religiosity through the rituals of the Church.” The same interviewer commented that the cardinal emphasized “that the essence of the Catholic faith is not affected by the process of inculturation, merely the way people express themselves.”⁴In this discussion of inculturation, the cardinal did not comment more generally on the inerrancy of Scripture or his views on the historicity of the Gospels.

Addressing Liturgical Abuse

During his tenure as president of the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC), Cardinal Napier promptly responded to a warning from the Roman Curia on certain non-sacramental practices occurring in his diocese.

In 2008, Archbishop Ranjith, at that time secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, wrote to the SACBC concerning services in which lay faithful were anointed with “oil of gladness” during healing services. Archbishop Ranjith called for “proper catechesis and sacramental discipline” and noted that the “use of any other oil or any other ‘anointing’ than those found in the approved liturgical books must be considered proscribed and subject to ecclesiastical penalties.” In response, the SACBC responded and published a statement on blessed oils, distinguishing essential oils from blessed oils and concluding that “the bishops are from now on limiting the blessing and use of this blessed oil to priests alone.”

Priestly Celibacy

Cardinal Napier has expressed his views on priestly celibacy, particularly in the context of discussions about the ordination of married men. In 2019 he dismissed the idea that the ordination of married men as priests would become a global practice. This suggests that he supports maintaining the tradition of celibacy within the Catholic priesthood. His stance reflects a commitment to the existing Church discipline regarding celibacy.

GOVERNING OFFICE

Attentive Pastor

During Napier’s time as cardinal-archbishop of Durban, the number of Catholics decreased from just over 7 percent of the population in 1990 to just over 4 percent in 2016. The number of priestly vocations increased during that time.

Napier is an attentive pastor to his diocese. He writes in a diocesan bulletin quarterly on pertinent issues affecting his flock. The cardinal has spearheaded and supported many diocesan pastoral initiatives, including a refugee pastoral care program, a streetwise rescue and rehabilitation project, the Right to Live campaign, and other educational, health, and outreach programs. Cardinal Napier also helped to spearhead a mini World Youth Day with the SACBC in 2017.⁵Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (October 2017): 66. He has spoken to the wider public about the “very strong sense that they need God” among the African people. In responding to the rising secularism in the West and what the West could learn from Africa, Napier stated the following:

 “What can Europe and the West learn from us? That is very difficult to say because the global culture tends to dominate so much that most of the time we are learning from you how to become more self-reliant or even self-sufficient, which is a short jump away from saying, “I don’t really need God!” You can and should learn how to recognize your need for God! Perhaps the West could and would be open to learn from us if it spent more time looking at what really makes us human beings more truly the image and likeness of God.”

Financial Probity

Cardinal Napier has also taken active steps to deal with the financial issues in the Church — both in his local diocese and on a global level. In 2015, Cardinal Napier suspended a priest in his diocese for financial mismanagement and stated that “transparency and accountability is essential, and it is the reason for this course of action.” Cardinal Napier’s decision was unpopular among some in his diocese. He explained that the Church was following proper procedures, as “there was a clear indication that [the priest in question] had mismanaged a large amount of money.” Cardinal Napier stated that it was “an amount of money that I will never make in my lifetime” and that “it was my responsibility to follow the protocols.”

As a member of the Council for the Economy, Napier has been an active participant in the reform of the Vatican Bank. He observed that “everyone knows . . . the way that the Vatican Bank was being represented in the media, the way it couldn’t account for some of its actions.” Reform was undoubtedly needed: “A person must have come back from living on the moon, maybe, if they think there wasn’t any need for reforms of the Vatican.” He has only expressed public support for financial reform but little or no criticism.

Collegiality and Synodality

Cardinal Napier believes that collegiality and synodality are central to effective Church reform. He views the leadership of the Church as a single community and has stated that bishops must be “walking together in a joint effort to make the Church a change-maker in modern society.” During his participation in the 2014 and 2015 synods, Cardinal Napier called for bishops to take a more unified approach, being united both to each other and to the pope. He stated that “it’s more about ourselves being one, from the bishops down.” It is about being sure that “the bishops of the Church . . . [are] united under the Holy Father and not divided into factions.”

Napier has challenged the actions of the Roman Curia and his brother bishops where he deemed it necessary to do so. He has openly criticized the synodal processes as well as the documents summarizing synod meetings. During the 2018 Synod on Youth, for example, the cardinal criticized the Instrumentum Laboris (the synod’s working document) for being “Eurocentric.” Cardinal Napier stated that the document did not account for a range of issues affecting the African Church and youth, including the mass migration of young Africans, exploitation of resources, and the phenomenon that young Africans are looking for “Jesus and looking for answers to their problems.”

In his role as president delegate to the 2015 Synod on the Family, Cardinal Napier sent a letter to Pope Francis (and to other cardinals) to express his concern about the composition of the drafting committee for the final report of the synod. Cardinal Napier was not so much challenging the pope’s right to appoint members of a drafting committee as he was concerned that, in order to give “a fair expression of what the Synod is about, [such as] what the Church in Africa really would like to see happening,” there should be a change in the composition of the drafting committee.

In addition, Cardinal Napier criticized Instrumentum Laboris and the 2014 Synod on the Family for casting a positive light on actions that were directly contrary to the Church’s teaching. In a 2015 interview, the cardinal stated:

Now, how can you in an official document of the Church be giving positive qualities to something that is in direct contradiction to the Church’s teaching — Jesus’s teaching. For instance, cohabitation was presented as if it was a good kind of preparation for marriage or a good alternative to marriage. No, you can’t do that and be talking about the sacrament of marriage in the same breath.

He also criticized the Relatio Post Disceptationem, a summary document issued halfway through the 2014 Synod on the Family, asserting that “the message has gone out and it’s not a true message.” In an interview with the press, Napier said that “whatever we say hereafter is going to be as if we’re doing some damage control.” Cardinal Napier’s criticism of the synod document was based on his “dissatisfaction” that elements said by individual synod members were inserted into the document “as if they really do reflect the feeling of the whole synod” and had been “made to be the message of the synod.” He also endorsed the 2015 book Rigging of a Vatican Synod: An Investigation into Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family which showed how various attempts were made to push through heterodox agendas, such as admission to Holy Communion of civilly “remarried” divorcees and encouragement that the Church show greater acceptance of homosexuality — an issue that remains a particular social taboo in Africa.⁶Edward Pentin, The Rigging of a Vatican Synod: An Investigation into Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015).

Cardinal Napier has been actively involved in discussions related to the Synod on Synodality. In June 2024, he participated in a virtual conversation where he emphasized the importance of the African Church taking part in the Synod as a “Family of God” and highlighted the challenges facing families today. He stressed the need for the Church to focus on becoming a true “Family of God in Africa and Beyond.”

German Synodal Way

Cardinal Napier has expressed concerns about the German Synodal Way, particularly regarding its potential impact on the global Catholic Church. He signed a fraternal letter of concern addressed to the German episcopacy, which highlighted the implications of the Synodal Path for the Church worldwide. He was worried that the German Synodal Way was diverging from established Church teachings, especially on issues related to sexuality, and believed that such deviations could have repercussions for the Church in other parts of the world, including Africa.

Addressing Sexual Abuse

Various media outlets have asked the cardinal to speak directly about the sex abuse scandal in the Church. In response to a question from EWTN on the root cause of the scandal, the cardinal said “we let the model bar slip” after the Second Vatican Council, when priests were released from very strict rules “of etiquette, of behavior”  which, in the opinion of the cardinal, produced an overreaction. In a tweet regarding the problem of homosexuality in the priesthood, the cardinal seemed to indicate that he would weed out homosexual candidates for the priesthood early on during the selection process.⁷Cardinal Napier (@CardinalNapier), “Wasn’t this the problem with sending abuse offenders to treatment centres for these to root the evil tendencies out of them?” It is worth noting that the cardinal has not commented on the current debate in the Catholic Church around priestly celibacy.

In an interview with Stephen Nolan of the BBC, the cardinal described pedophilia as a “psychological condition or disorder . . . not a criminal condition.” Cardinal Napier shared that he knew “at least two of the priests who became pedophiles who had themselves been abused as children.” Napier rebutted the generalization that the Church had “mishandled” cases of clerical sexual abuse and spoke of his experience dealing with complaints of sexual abuse in his diocese. He explained that he followed the protocols in place at the time. The cardinal seems to prefer a case-by-case approach to the culpability of each accused abuser. During the interview, Napier stated that he could not determine the culpability of abused pedophiles, but that those persons should not be criminally punished in the same way as those abusers who acted with full agency. He protested: “Don’t tell me that those people are criminally responsible like someone who chooses something like that. [I] don’t think you can really take the position that that person deserves to be punished.”

After these comments sparked a critical response, Cardinal Napier issued an apology on Twitter “to victims of child abuse offended by my misstatement of what was and still is my concern about all abused, including the abused abuser.” He said that it was “the supreme irony” since he had “raised the issue of the abused abuser” and now stood “accused of insensitivity to the sufferings of the abused.”

In a 2018 bulletin to his archdiocese, Napier referred to the Church’s sex abuse scandal and called for prayer and fasting to cast out the evil that has penetrated the Church:

“Given the deep-seated nature of the evil that has been perpetrated, there seems to be only one thing to do. After apologizing profusely to the victim/survivors, to their family and communities, we have to apply the remedy which Jesus himself applied to his Disciples when they were at a loss as to how to caste out a particularly stubborn demon. Our demon seems to be just as stubborn and just as difficult to caste out. ‘This kind can be caste out only by prayer and fasting!’”⁸Cardinal Napier, “Ad Intra Challenges,” Catholic News Bulletin (August 2018): 54.

Instructing his diocese not to tell others “especially Pope Francis, what to do,” Cardinal Napier called for “all who care for their Church to follow the advice of Jesus — fast and pray!”⁹Napier, “Ad Intra Challenges,” Catholic News Bulletin (August 2018): 54.

TEACHING OFFICE

Tweeting Cardinal

Napier is an avid user of Twitter — despite its being rather an anarchical forum given to insults and provocation — to share candid opinions about social and moral issues affecting the Church today. For example, the cardinal reacted against the call for Catholics to apologize for their treatment of gay people after the shooting massacre at an Orlando gay club. He stated his disapproval by tweeting “God help us! Next we’ll have to apologize for teaching that adultery is a sin! Political Correctness (PC) is today’s major heresy!”

In addition, Napier publicly criticized the BBC for promoting homosexuality in a series of tweets in 2017. As part of his support of the Catholic Church’s pastoral role in helping same-sex-attracted people to live chastely, Cardinal Napier tweeted his approval of two Catholics who have written against the pro-LGBTQ stance taken by some members of the Catholic Church.¹⁰Cardinal Wilfrid Napier Subtly Rebukes Fr. James Martin’s Pro-Gay Agenda,” PagadianDiocese.org, 12 February 2018.

Defending the Family

As a delegate and participant in two synods on the family, Napier has also taken a keen interest in the social and cultural problems that erode the traditional family. He has called for the Catholic Church to help bolster and strengthen good marriages. In an article written by the cardinal in 2018 on the vocation of men, he states:

“So, in its ministry the Church is to set up the original order for marriage and family life as the benchmark for all relationships between men and women. This requires each man to embrace fully his chosen state in life. If it is marriage and fatherhood then he must be an equal partner and complement his wife especially in their common vocation of procreating and raising a family.”

After the interview about the Church’s abuse scandal with the BBC (see above), Cardinal Napier was questioned by various media organizations on a range of social and moral issues. According to Napier, same-sex “marriages” go against “reason and revelation.” In responding to the journalists’ reaction to this statement, the cardinal seemed to say that the Church has exceptionless moral norms and “if we don’t articulate this as the Church, it means we have to shut up shop.” Again the cardinal criticized the culture of political correctness, stating that “freedom of expression seems to work if you say what is deemed to be politically acceptable.”

For Cardinal Napier, the Church’s position that same-sex “marriage” goes against human reason is based on the difference between men and women, who “were made differently, they were made to complement each other.” By virtue of these differences “men and women were made to create life together.” As a result, Cardinal Napier stated that same-sex “marriage” is “radically wrong” because it is “devoid of the concept of bringing life into earth.” Napier continued by stating that “as far as church is concerned, sexual activity is for within the confines of marriage; for procreation and the building up of the relationship between the couple.” He sternly warned that one “can’t practice in the Catholic Church if you aren’t married and are sexually active.”

Cardinal Napier has also called for the Church to introduce a program of “accompanying marriages — for four, five, maybe 10 years,” in the hope that if the Church accompanies couples, it will “avoid the pitfalls of broken marriages and divorce and needing to address this question of civilly ‘remarried’ Catholics being admitted to [reception of] the Eucharist.”

Secular Controversies

In recent years, Cardinal Napier has been unafraid to weigh in on some issues that attack the faith, the family and threaten the well-being of society. In August 2020, he criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, arguing that it had been hijacked by agendas that undermine the traditional family and promote abortion. He expressed concerns that these stances detract from the movement’s original goal of racial justice.

In August 2024, he joined other Catholic leaders in signing an open letter demanding an apology from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for what they perceived as a blasphemous depiction of the Last Supper during the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony. The letter called for a day of prayer and fasting in response to the incident. He also tweeted that, according to him, the games had “set us a giant sized conundrum, a multitude baying for Pope Francis to condemn the utterly offensive Opening Ceremony, on the one side, and utter refusal to follow his teaching on the other! Crazy, crazy world we live in!”

Communion for “Remarried” Divorcees

Another attack on the traditional family in Africa is the problem of polygamy. In a 2014 interview, Cardinal Napier clearly stated that Communion for divorced-and-“remarried” Catholics, whom he referred to as successive polygamists, should not be permitted. Napier made the point that if divorced-and-“remarried” Catholics are permitted to receive Communion, the Catholic Church would have no ground to refuse Communion to those in polygamous relationships. He called for those divorced-and-“remarried” Catholics to “carry the cross of Christ” even if the world is telling them that the softer option is always preferable.

Resisting Ideological Colonization

Speaking about the 2014 synod, Cardinal Napier signaled his disapproval of Western aid organizations’ pressuring African countries to adopt policies that reflect anti-marriage and anti-family ideologies. He explained that the outcome of the synod would have a real impact on the traditional family in African countries.

It is clear that Napier is committed to certain nonnegotiable moral norms even when they prove unpopular. For the cardinal, relevance in the world is secondary to the Church’s mission of conveying certain truths. He says: “It’s not about whether the Church is relevant. It’s that the message it’s committed to conveying is more than relevant — that God created us for a very special purpose which He’s entrusted to us.”

HIV and AIDS

The cardinal has also addressed the scourge of HIV and AIDS in Africa. He has been consistently critical of the practice of using condoms to prevent the spread of the disease. Napier stated that the African bishops “regard the widespread and indiscriminate promotion of condoms as an immoral and misguided weapon in the battle against HIV/AIDS.” Napier sees value in “proclaim[ing] our message loud and clear” because delivering the message clearly “will strengthen the moral fiber of our countries.” “Abstain and be faithful is the human and Christian way of overcoming AIDS. Abstain from sex before marriage and be faithful to your spouse within marriage. This is the answer which Christ gives us.”

Napier distinguishes, however, between programs that use condoms to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS and married couples who use them because of a discordant HIV/AIDS status. In such cases, Cardinal Napier makes it clear that “there is a real danger that the healthy partner will contract this killer disease,” and, as a result, “the Church accepts that everyone has the right to defend one’s life against mortal danger, this would include using appropriate means and course of action.”

Right-to-Life Issues

For the cardinal, the demands of the common good on those who govern give rise to a duty to protect life. Napier appears not to have publicly commented on euthanasia. But the following statement illustrates his broad understanding of what it means to be pro-life:

“This means that in seeking to meet the demands of the common good, the government must set out clearly the measures it can and will take to ensure that its citizens have shelter, security, food, clothing, healthcare; but its first priority is to respect, protect, defend, enhance and promote human life.”

Napier is a fierce critic of the practice of abortion and has publicly criticized institutions that provide abortions.¹¹Cardinal Napier (@CardinalNapier), “I like the ring of #SayNopeToMarieStopes the abortion agency that is killing tens of thousands of unborn Babies in Africa including South Africa.” “1/3 Guttmacher Institute estimates that since 1973 USA has aborted 57 million+ babies! Isn’t this something we should be apologizing for?” In 2016, he highlighted the extremely high number of abortions carried out on black women, commenting that “it starts to look like genocide.” He has also criticized the Obama administration for funding abortions in Africa. From these comments it is clear that, for the cardinal, abortion is never morally permissible.

Migrants and Refugees

Napier has not advocated a policy of giving permanent residency to all migrants to South Africa, citing in part the justified concerns of those impoverished already living there. The cardinal has identified what he calls the root cause of the problem of xenophobic violence in South Africa: poverty. He explained that “when the majority of people live in poverty there is always a temptation to take it out on the even more disadvantaged.” In discussing the problem of xenophobia in South Africa, Cardinal Napier explained that the source of tension was often from migration and the perceived threat of new immigrants. While Napier did not make any comments on appropriate immigration policy more generally, he did say the following:

“So, I feel for the local people who feel that their job opportunities, their housing opportunities; their education and all these other things that they ardently desire to have in a better way than they may be having at present, that these may be denied them because of foreigners that come in.”

Islam and Interreligious Dialogue

As part of his work to combat poverty in South Africa, Napier has participated in interreligious dialogue in his diocese. He carried out joint activities with Islamic leaders in his role as archbishop of Durban, including a joint Muslim-Christian initiative for the homeless,¹²“DHC — Joint Muslim-Christian Initiative for the Homeless,” Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, 25 June 2015 and acted as chair of an interfaith panel discussion during the Durban climate-change talks.¹³Cardinal Napier (@CardinalNapier), “. . . Denis Hurley Centre AGM for Trustees and Supporters of the Centre, including Buddhist leader, Islamic leader, several Christian leaders and score of Parishioners.” The tension between religious groups has also been highlighted by the SACBC, which, for example, wrote about the religious persecution of Christians in Iraq in its August 2014 bulletin:

“As Catholic bishops of Southern Africa, we beg for religious tolerance in Iraq. The utter destruction of ancient dioceses, vibrant parishes and faithful families because of their loyalty to faith is a crime against humanity. We also bear in our hearts those other religious traditions of Iraq who suffer the same fate as the Christian community.”¹⁴“Statement on Iraq,” Catholic Archdiocese of Durban Newsletter 1, no. 7 (11 August 2014): 2.

The statement expressed admiration for “many of the great religious teachings of Islam, particularly their care for the poor and the needy.”¹⁵“Statement on Iraq,” Catholic Archdiocese of Durban Newsletter, 2. At a 2016 interfaith meeting at a mosque in Durban, the cardinal stated that “all our religions teach us acceptance, respect and love” and that it was most important to “find renewal and reform in improving our relations between people like us gathered here today.” Cardinal Napier has not publicly identified any deep theological incompatibility between Islam and Christianity. He has rather drawn attention to a distinction between faithful Muslims and those driven by extremism.¹⁶In the same statement, the bishops “call on faithful Muslims who believe in our common humanity to plead with those driven by extremism to cease their oppression of deeply religious communities and to seek that peace which Islam itself endeavors to promote.” See “Statement on Iraq,” Catholic Archdiocese of Durban Newsletter, 2.

Evangelization

Napier has been an active advocate of continuous evangelization efforts in his diocese. During the 2016 Year of Mercy, he called for his diocese to address the urgent task of evangelization:

“But what of those who don’t know God, or His Son, Jesus? That’s where you and I come in! It is our task to spread the message of God’s mercy. And through the Missions — the work of every religious, and every lay person, and friends like you who support the Missions, this can be accomplished.”¹⁷“The ‘Year of Mercy,’ Zulu Missions,” Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, 5 March 2016

The cardinal encouraged his flock to ask Our Lady to intercede in their evangelization efforts. Although he did not comment on the role of Our Lady as a model for women in family life, Napier did state that she is a source of inspiration for the evangelization mission of all Catholics. He explained that moved by the Spirit, she welcomed the Word of life in the depths of her humble faith. May the Virgin Mother help us to say our own “yes”, conscious of the urgent need to make the Good News of Jesus resound in our time. May she obtain for us renewed zeal in bringing to everyone the Good News of the life that is victorious over death. May she intercede for us so that we can acquire the holy audacity needed to discover new ways to bring the gift of salvation to every man and woman.¹⁸Archdiocese of Durban, Catholic News Bulletin: Pope’s Message for World Mission Sunday (Durban: Archdiocese of Durban, 2017)

It is clear that Napier understands the Catholic Church as containing the fullness of the truth and a corresponding divine law. In his own words:

“The justice of God means you must keep his law, but when you’ve broken that law, how does his mercy come into play? That, I think, is the dilemma that we are having to handle and we have to keep that before us leading up to the synod, at the synod and beyond the synod.”

As any believer, of whatever faith, will readily affirm, you cannot ask for and expect to receive God’s blessing unless you are willing and committed to submit to His will; in particular as it is expressed in His Commandments.

OPPOSING APARTHEID

Cardinal Napier worked to end the apartheid regime while speaking out against the revenge and violence that the some in the liberation forces were advocating. In the late 1970s, the South African bishops issued a declaration that stated that “the Catholic Church in South Africa [was] lagging behind in witness to the Gospel in matters of social justice.” After the declaration was made, Napier found inspiration in his episcopal motto, Pax et Bonum, which became “a call to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the joys and hopes . . . especially of those who are poor . . . would be heeded.” Thus encouraged, Napier got involved in mediation work during the struggles against the apartheid regime. For example, he took part in the work of the Patriotic Front and the Rustenburg Conference of Churches. ¹⁹The Patriotic Front was a collaboration between the African National Congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress, South Africa’s two largest liberation movements during the apartheid regime. The Rustenburg Conference of Churches was an ecumenical conference of 230 delegates from 80 churches and 40 other church-related groups that met and made a declaration on “the unequivocal rejection of apartheid as a sin” and acknowledged that churches had played a “heretical part in the policy of apartheid which has led to such extreme suffering for so many in our land.” He explained that collegiality, defined as “the participation of Bishops in the government of the Catholic Church in collaboration with the Pope,” was a crucial tool in fighting apartheid. During the struggle, Napier explained that his initial aim was to “facilitate a consultation, which would engage every Church member in the search for the best way to . . . remove apartheid thinking, speaking and acting from society [and] . . . in the first instance from the Church’s own day to day life.” This consultation took place between bishops as well as between the bishops and the laity and was “the basic strength of the Catholic Church and the foundation stone” for the important and crucial role that it played in ending the regime.

Napier noted that the Catholic Church did not simply issue a simple statement or declaration expressing the Church’s social teaching. The Church, instead, successfully moved from “statements and declarations against apartheid to trendsetting policies and transforming actions within the Church itself.” One example cited by Napier was the Church’s reaction to the June 1976 Soweto student uprising. In Napier’s words, “the Bishops formulated and then began immediately implementing their ‘Declaration of Commitment on Social Justice and Race Relations within the Church’ in all Catholic institutions”; this led to a strategy of noncompliance that was spearheaded by the opening of “Catholic schools to students of all races — which contrasted with the government’s policy of segregation at the time.”

Napier admitted that there was a “racial mindset and attitude of Catholics as a result of generations of indoctrination and division on the basis of race.” To tackle this deeply embedded mindset, Napier commented that the Catholics of South Africa “needed a paradigm shift to bring them to recognise that each and every person has equally dignity and worth.” This shift is still taking place, and Napier has spoken in many forums about the importance of ongoing race reconciliation in South Africa, urging each group to “go beyond themselves.” He has spoken recently about the developments in South Africa after the fall of the apartheid regime and criticized the ANC government for not substantially improving the education system that existed under the apartheid regime. For Napier, there is still much more work to be done in the area of democracy and education in South Africa.

Napier has clearly stated that the mission of the Church in South Africa goes beyond ending racial segregation. The Church’s mission is to transform hearts and minds. As a result, the cardinal called for the Church in South Africa to be a “Community Serving God, Humanity, and All Creation,” committed to Christ’s missionary mandate.²⁰Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (March 2018): 10. In Napier’s words, “we are not a community focused only on removing the evil effects of colonialism and apartheid.” We are “rather committed to becoming a community of those baptized to be the images of God, by introducing all men and women into the community of those who live God’s life of community in the Trinity.”²¹Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (June 2018): 39.

• 1
  Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (June 2018): 37.
• 2
  Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (June 2018): 37.
• 3
  Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (June 2018): 37.
• 4
  In this discussion of inculturation, the cardinal did not comment more generally on the inerrancy of Scripture or his views on the historicity of the Gospels.
• 5
  Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (October 2017): 66.
• 6
  Edward Pentin, The Rigging of a Vatican Synod: An Investigation into Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015).
• 7
  Cardinal Napier (@CardinalNapier), “Wasn’t this the problem with sending abuse offenders to treatment centres for these to root the evil tendencies out of them?” It is worth noting that the cardinal has not commented on the current debate in the Catholic Church around priestly celibacy.
• 8
  Cardinal Napier, “Ad Intra Challenges,” Catholic News Bulletin (August 2018): 54.
• 9
  Napier, “Ad Intra Challenges,” Catholic News Bulletin (August 2018): 54.
• 10
  Cardinal Wilfrid Napier Subtly Rebukes Fr. James Martin’s Pro-Gay Agenda,” PagadianDiocese.org, 12 February 2018
• 11
  Cardinal Napier (@CardinalNapier), “I like the ring of #SayNopeToMarieStopes the abortion agency that is killing tens of thousands of unborn Babies in Africa including South Africa.” “1/3 Guttmacher Institute estimates that since 1973 USA has aborted 57 million+ babies! Isn’t this something we should be apologizing for?”
• 12
  “DHC — Joint Muslim-Christian Initiative for the Homeless,” Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, 25 June 2015
• 13
  Cardinal Napier (@CardinalNapier), “. . . Denis Hurley Centre AGM for Trustees and Supporters of the Centre, including Buddhist leader, Islamic leader, several Christian leaders and score of Parishioners.”
• 14
  “Statement on Iraq,” Catholic Archdiocese of Durban Newsletter 1, no. 7 (11 August 2014): 2.
• 15
  “Statement on Iraq,” Catholic Archdiocese of Durban Newsletter, 2.
• 16
  In the same statement, the bishops “call on faithful Muslims who believe in our common humanity to plead with those driven by extremism to cease their oppression of deeply religious communities and to seek that peace which Islam itself endeavors to promote.” See “Statement on Iraq,” Catholic Archdiocese of Durban Newsletter, 2.
• 17
  “The ‘Year of Mercy,’ Zulu Missions,” Catholic Archdiocese of Durban, 5 March 2016
• 18
  Archdiocese of Durban, Catholic News Bulletin: Pope’s Message for World Mission Sunday (Durban: Archdiocese of Durban, 2017)
• 19
  The Patriotic Front was a collaboration between the African National Congress and the Pan-Africanist Congress, South Africa’s two largest liberation movements during the apartheid regime. The Rustenburg Conference of Churches was an ecumenical conference of 230 delegates from 80 churches and 40 other church-related groups that met and made a declaration on “the unequivocal rejection of apartheid as a sin” and acknowledged that churches had played a “heretical part in the policy of apartheid which has led to such extreme suffering for so many in our land.”
• 20
  Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (March 2018): 10.
• 21
  Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, “Cardinal’s Corner,” Catholic News Bulletin (June 2018): 39.