South African cardinal Wilfrid Napier said this week that the Catholic Church can lead the process to help overcome decades of apartheid and racial divisions that continue to dominate life in their country.
In a dialogue with Ewtn News Flynn in Rome on May 26, the purple recognized the persistent effects of the apartheidthat for decades imposed a rigid racial segregation in South Africa in favor of the white minority of the country.
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Although the racial segregation system was largely abolished in the early 1990s, “the structures of the apartheid They were implemented cannot be reversed, ”said Napier.
The continuous effects of racist policies, said Napier, are manifested in the reality of “Churches of the marginal neighborhoods, parishes of the marginal neighborhoods, and (then) their most middle class parishes and, sometimes, high -class” in the country.
“That is the reality in which the Church has to work,” he said, noting that the “very disadvantaged areas” consist mainly in black citizens, while the most accommodated areas are more mixed.
The Church can help “overcome” these historically unfair circumstances, he said, “making sure that when we have diocesan meetings (and) diocesan structures, we include people of all those origins and gather them.”
Napier reflected on his participation in protests years ago and the fear that the police could open fire against him and his companions.
“It was as serious as that sometimes,” he said. “Because we decide as a church (that) we cannot stay out and simply pray in our churches. We have to go to the streets.”
South Africa was recently in the news when US President Donald Trump, while receiving South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, showed images in a South African rally in which the participants chanted “kill the Bóer.”
When consulted on such songs and slogans in South African political events that call violence and the “revolution”, Napier said that the motto “kills the Boer” was a “protest song.”
“The basis of this was: the government has taken our land,” he said. “They have given this land to these Boers, these Afrikáners, (and) will not return it to us … we will recover it.”
Admitting that progress in the nation, often full of crimes, has stagnated in recent years, the purple said that the Church in South Africa “dropped the ball” by giving a large part of the work of reconciliation to politicians.
When asked by Flynn about the general state of the Church in South Africa today, Napier said that the Catholic Church, if it wants to have “an impact on society”, must begin with “good and strong parishes.”
“If you are going to have good and strong parishes, you need good and strong families,” he said. “If you are going to get new good and strong families, you need good and strong marriages. To achieve that, you must have a good marriage preparation.”
“I think that would be my starting point by saying that if we are going to have an impact on society, we have to look where society really gets society, and that is from the family, the family community,” he said.
Flynn’s full interview with Napier can be seen, in English, below:
Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.
Daniel Payne
Daniel Payne is a senior editor of Catholic News Agency. He previously worked at College Fix and Just the News. He lives in Virginia with his family.