CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER INTERVIEW - Wednesday 16th July, 2008
TRANSCRIPT
In Ireland right now, Catholics are worried that, paradoxically for
that bastion of Catholicism, they're running out of priests. But, here
in Australia this week - notwithstanding some pretty robust office and
pub talk about whether or not Sydney's taxpayer-funded World Youth Day
should be more honestly called World Catholic Youth Day, they're on
something of a religious and public relations high. As we speak, Pope
Benedict XVI is resting up. But, earlier this evening, another
not-so-youthful pilgrim - Cardinal Wilfrid Fox-Napier from South Africa
- joined Dateline here in the studio.
GEORGE NEGUS: Cardinal, thanks very much for joining us
because it was
a last minute call for you. Could you help us clear-up one World Youth
Day conundrum around the pubs and offices and dining rooms I suspect,
of this country. Why is it called World Youth Day rather than World
Catholic Youth Day? It is on the mind of a lot of people including
taxpayers who put their hands in their pockets for this amazing
spectacle.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER, ANCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN: I think
when Pope
John Paul the Second called the first one he just had in mind to call
the youth - he meant Catholic youth and he just called it World Youth
Day and it doesn’t seem to have changed since then.
GEORGE NEGUS: I wonder as a matter of integrity, why it
shouldn’t be called World Catholic Youth Day - it is a World
Catholic Youth Day.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: I think it is because mostly when
we talk
about events that are on a world level for the Catholic Church, it is
understood - Catholic is understood.
GEORGE NEGUS: So it was an understanding - it wasn't that the
Catholic
Church didn't think that Jewish youth or Muslim youth or Protestant
youth.....
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: I think they are very welcome to
join and
be part of the Youth Day.
GEORGE NEGUS: This may seem like a cynical question but it is
a genuine
question. To what extent is the purpose if you like, the motivation for
World Youth Day, a public relations exercise, a marketing exercise to
get the Church out there because it has certainly overtaken the media
in the country in the last few days.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: I would think it wouldn't be the
correct
judgment to make. First of all because I think what I hear from the
youth is the great thing about World Youth Day is that it gets the
world youth together. People who would never meet young people of
another generation, of another country have this opportunity, not only
to meet with them but to hear their stories of their faith, exchange
ideas on their practice and how things go in the country and then to
show how they practise their faith. That is one of the great features
that I have come across.
GEORGE NEGUS: Going back to what I was getting at before,
would it be
useful to the Globe, to the planet, to the human race if you like, at
the moment when there is so much conflict and so much difference and so
much division, on occasions because of religious differences, for the
Church to take the initiative, the Vatican even to take the initiative
and get World Youth together, including Muslims and Jews, Protestants,
Hindus, the Brotherhood of left-handed electricians - anyone who has
our faith. Wouldn't that be a contribution the Catholic Church could
make to the whole human condition, to get people of different faiths
and beliefs together?
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: George I think your question is a
good
proposal to put forward when one gets the opportunity to meet with the
cardinals and Pope and so on, to put that forward. I don't think that
idea has actually come to anyone's mind. But I don't think anyone has
actually thought of how that would be done - who would call it? Who
would organise that?
GEORGE NEGUS: Who would be so arrogant as to say I am calling
it?
Ecumenism - is that still on the agenda? We hear a lot about
inter-faith dialogue. When there are significant theological
differences between the faiths, the religions of the world, is it
really possible or is it Cloud Cuckoo Land stuff?
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: I am glad you asked that question
because
for the last two years I have been involved at the local provincial
level in precisely an exercise like this. It arose from an invitation
by the premier of the province to the religious leaders, to come
together and enter in a partnership with the government and religious
communities. To address the various issues, social and economic issues
and particularly the health one, HIV and AIDS.
GEORGE NEGUS: You mentioned HIV AIDS - is the true as was
suggested
here that you are known for your determined opposition to the use of
condoms to prevent HIV Aids?
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: Yes. Can I explain the reason for
that?
GEORGE NEGUS: You can certainly try, to me as a non Catholic
it seems
almost a contradiction in terms.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: Can I talk to you on a level of
practice
before we get into the level of morality? The only country, I would go
as far to say the only country in the world that has turned around an
HIV prevalence rate of 29 per cent and brought it down to six per cent
in a matter of ten years has been Uganda and the programme in Uganda
was behaviour changed and they developed a ABC method - A standing for
abstinence, B for be faithful and C for use of condoms. The use of
condoms in the case of Uganda was for a married couple or an
established couple, a long standing couple who were discordant - one
was HIV positive and the other negative. And the condom was therefore
only used within the context of a stable union. The other two aspects
were, if you were not married abstain from sex until you're married and
if you are married be faithful to your partner.
GEORGE NEGUS: Do think that it would be that simple to change
behaviour
in South Africa where probably the highest incidence of HIV Aids in the
world, people dying on a regular basis because they do not use condoms.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: No. That is the country with
highest
distribution rate of condoms in South Africa and the opposite result is
happening.
GEORGE NEGUS: But you believe that having higher use again
would not
prevent the problem or at least reduce the problem? You think the
death-rate is OK the way it is?
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: No, but I don't think the
death-rate is
because people are not using the condom – yet it is
available. You expect that because people are hearing from bishops,
‘you must use a condom’ that they do what the
bishop say? We have already been preaching all our lives
‘don’t have sex outside of marriage’ and
now all of a sudden.....
GEORGE NEGUS: Even sex without HIV being part of the equation
is a
totally different thing, isn’t it?
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: I don't know - there has always
been
Sexually Transmitted Deceases and all that as well.
GEORGE NEGUS: But not like this?
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: There have not been yeah. My
question to
you is - do you follow an example that has failed or do you follow an
example that has succeeded?
GEORGE NEGUS: But it does sound a little like coming from a
high-placed
Catholic like yourself, blind faith, blind faith in the belief about
condoms.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: No I think it is blind faith in
the
ability of human beings to take control of their lives. If you go on a
policy of condom distribution as the only solution to HIV and Aids,
you're telling people that they cannot take control of their lives and
therefore I think you're doing them an injustice by saying, you are so
stupid, even though this disease is a killer, you cannot take control
of their lives.
GEORGE NEGUS: I would like to put to you one thing that
Archbishop Pell
said earlier in the week which came as a shock to a lot of people.
Knowing how committed the Catholic Church is in the fight against
poverty, he suggested that there were not enough babies – we
need more babies in the western world – that came as a shock
to us. It seems like a contradiction in just about everything. At a
time when we are having food shortages and we know overpopulation is a
huge problem, yet he was advocating more not less, a higher if you like
not a lower birth rate.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: Can you look at the practical
situation in
countries like Belgium, Germany, France where you have an ageing
population. All the other countries in the world, especially the Third
World countries..
GEORGE NEGUS: So you agree with him?
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: What I am saying is, how does a
country
continue doing what it is doing if it doesn't have younger blood coming
into the system?
GEORGE NEGUS: In terms of the food shortage in the world at
the moment,
you can see why some people would see that as a contradiction in terms,
a clergy as highly placed as Archbishop Pell pulling for more babies
and not a lower population.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: Are we sure that there is
actually a food
shortage?
GEORGE NEGUS: I am pretty sure there is yes.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: I thought there was a food
surplus but in
the wrong places.
GEORGE NEGUS: There are plenty evidence to suggest to the
contrary
there have been riots in some parts of the world because there is such
a food shortage.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: In France and the European Union
countries
where they are dumping food because the prices are down.
GEORGE NEGUS: That is another story.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: The food shortage is in countries
where
they do not produce enough and in countries where they produce more
than enough they're paid subsidies to produce and that food is dumped.
GEORGE NEGUS: It is complicated.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: The globalisation - Pope John
Paul used
the expression, let us globalise solidarity and then we will solve a
lot of our problems and that is what he had in mind.
GEORGE NEGUS: Cardinal thank you very much for your time.
CARDINAL WILFRID FOX NAPIER: Thank you very much and God bless.
GEORGE NEGUS: Cardinal Wilfrid Fox- Napier from South Africa.
A bit
like a Theology 1 tutorial, wasn't it?