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Cardinal Napier slams Father Martin and Cardinal McElroy


One of the leading voices of the Catholic Church in Africa has criticised the appeals of two US clerics to change the Church's teaching on homosexuality.



Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier responded by quoting Popes Francis and Benedict XVI to both Cardinal Robert McElroy and Jesuit Father James Martin.

In a Twitter response to Martin, the Archbishop Emeritus of Durban wrote: "The biggest irony of the decade? A month after his death, then-Cardinal Ratzinger, in these words from 1986, urges bishops to be constantly vigilant against "programmes that in fact try to put pressure on the Church to change its teaching, even if it sometimes denies in words that this is the case".

The South African cardinal thus recalled the letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church for pastoral care of homosexual persons. As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - later Pope Benedict XVI - had signed this letter on 1 October 1986.

Father Martin had referred to an article in the British Catholic weekly The Tablet, which claimed that "there is a widespread feeling, not only among homosexual Catholics, that the Church's traditional teaching on homosexuality is unsatisfactory". 

The newspaper article goes on to say that "Pope Francis seems to think so, judging by an interview he gave recently" - a reference to the latter's statements to the Associated Press in which Francis said, among other things, that "homosexuality is not a crime".

Pope Francis had later added to these statements - in a letter to his friar also published by Father James Martin.

After referring to the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that "homosexual acts are by nature disordered", The Tablet quotes the British Benedictine Cardinal Basil Hume, who died in 1999, as saying, "The word 'disordered' is a harsh word in our English language" when discussing the English translation of the following passage.

Qui actus ibidem describebantur ut actus qui sua necessaria et essentiali ordinatione privantur, scilicet « suapte intrinseca natura » inordinati, ac proinde tales ut numquam ullo modo approbari possint.

This act being described as deprived of their essential and indispensable finality, as being "intrinsically disordered", and able in no case to be approved of.

(Cathcon: the teaching of the document is clear in any language)

For the British magazine, Cardinal Hume's "great contribution" was to "recognise that many homosexual relationships are stable, deep and loving, and he went on to say that "love between two people, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, should be valued and respected".

'Calculated ambiguities' and controversial claims

Hume, who died in 1999, is not an uncontroversial church figure. Among other things, he stands accused of covering up the sexual abuse of dozens of minors by Piers Grant-Ferris at Ampleforth College.

Notorious child molester Jimmy Savile is said to have been helped by Hume into membership of the well-known London Athenaeum.

In addition to Hume, the Tablet article points to another cardinal in support of its argument: Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg. Hollerich, a Jesuit, has been appointed by Pope Francis, among others, as the General Relator of the Synod of Synods. 

Hollerich recently had to supplement his statements on homosexuality, and had been sharply criticised by Cardinal George Pell - shortly before his death in January: Pell condemned Hollerich for "publicly rejecting the Church's basic teachings on sexuality, on the grounds that they would contradict modern science".

In his response to Father Martin, South African Cardinal Napier repeatedly refers to statements made by Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia and brings another excerpt from Cardinal Ratzinger's letter on homosexuality: "A careful study of their public statements, as well as the activities they promote, reveals a purposeful ambiguity whereby they seek to mislead pastors and the faithful." 

"For example, they sometimes present the teaching of the Magisterium as seeking to form the individual conscience merely as an option. Its unique authority, however, is not recognised," the Cardinal continued, quoting the 1986 document.

Cardinal Napier continued: "There is no basis for even remotely equating or comparing same-sex partnerships with God's plan for marriage and family". 

.....

In a response to a tweet from Anthony Annett, an academic at Fordham Jesuit High School about Cardinal McElroy's stance, Cardinal Napier asked, "Isn't it too easy to use phrases like 'many in the Church' or simply 'the Church' when confronted with a sensitive issue involving sexuality, justice or truth?"



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