SOUTH AFRICA
Mail & Guardian
12 Apr 2013 00:00 – Fatima Asmal
‘I can’t be accused of homophobia,” says Wilfred Napier, “because I don’t know any homosexuals.”
The admission is the starkest sign in a lengthy interview that the 72-year-old South African cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and Archbishop of Durban is unshaken in the face of criticism over his remarks in a BBC interview that he believed paedophilia was a “psychological condition” that needed to be treated.
It took more than two weeks to set up the interview with Napier. The main cause of the delay was the church’s holy week, which came after the unholy row caused by Napier’s interview with the BBC after the appointment of the new pope last month.
To say Napier has had an interesting past few months is an understatement. In late February he travelled to Rome to bid farewell to Pope Benedict, who was retiring, and personally thanked him for the role he had played in the Catholic Church in general and on the African continent, which he visited twice.
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