CV NEWS FEED // Cardinal Wilfrid Napier posted on social media that the worldwide debate around the recent Vatican document Fiducia Supplicans “lacks one essential word,” “Repent.”
On December 21 Cardinal Wilfrid Napier posted on X (formerly known as Twitter):
The “Fiducia Supplicans” debate lacks one essential word. Yet that word was the first on Jesus’ lips when he delivered his very first teaching: “Repent & Believe in the Gospel!” Thereafter he selects two fishermen Simon & Andrew in order to make them fishers of men!
Cardinal Napier is the Metropolitan Archbishop emeritus of Durban, South Africa, having retired in 2021 and is regarded as one of the most orthodox, outspoken voices in Africa, especially during the two Synods of Bishops on the Family in 2014 and 2015.
The South African Archbishop was one of the 13 cardinals that wrote a private letter to Pope Francis expressing serious concern regarding the possible manipulation of the 2014-2015 synods, which were followed by the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
Regarding the 2014 document, during a press conference, Napier said that the official summary “was already saying things which I know were only said in the hall at the most by two or three people, but was presented as if they were the reflection of the synod.”
“Now, that certainly gives you the impression that the synod is being pushed in a certain direction,” said the African cardinal at that time.
In another official press conference in 2015, Cardinal Napier surprised the synod’s organizers by saying:
I think when we look at the problems that we’ve been studying during these three weeks, there are two possibilities: The one is to look at it from the pastoral point of view, where you’re trying to reach out to people and minister to them.
The other one, which I would say has been deemphasized during this time, even at the synod last year, is the prophetic. Where, like John the Baptist, you say you’ve got to repent and these are the sins and you name them, as they are.
