African cardinal: abuse scandal ‘rocking’ Church is caused by ‘same sex activity’
South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier identified the role homosexual activity has played in the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis on Twitter Tuesday.
Responding to an online news report saying that a high court may force all of South Africa’s churches to allow same-sex unions, the cardinal said this is “precisely” the same activity as with the scandal that is “rocking the Catholic Church to its roots.”
And he went on to further say that forsaking God’s law always leads to anguish.
“This morning's newspaper headline: "Churches may have to allow same-sex unions" clearly misses the point that it is a precisely same-sex activity that is the scandal rocking the Catholic Church to its roots” Cardinal Napier tweeted. “Deviation from God's law always brings grief. Lord forgive us, sinners!”
The cardinal’s comment on Twitter came one day following Pope Francis’ first statement responding to the latest in the Church’s sex abuse crisis, in which the pope faulted “clericalism” for the abuse.
Calls continue for accountability from Church leaders in the decades-long sex abuse crisis - in particular, any bishops who were aware of or involved in covering and for abusers - and also for the Church to address the part homosexual activity has had in the abuse.
The Church’s own studies have shown, along with the contents of the Pennsylvania grand jury report released last week on seven decades of sexual abuse by roughly 300 priests in six of the state’s eight dioceses, that the overwhelming majority of abuse victims were male and also older than the age classification for pedophilia.
Anger persists among the laity, with calls for action from the bishops and Pope Francis, who, as Roman Pontiff, has sole authority to discipline bishops and cardinals.
Cardinal Napier has been vocal in his defense of the Church on Twitter and other venues previously, expressing support last year for a work by the late noted psychologist Joseph Nicolosi on reparative therapy.
He defended the Church’s teaching on withholding Communion from unrepentant adulterers in another tweet last year, posing the question that if divorced and remarried individuals and others in “irregular situations” can receive Communion, does this mean that polygamists and others are allowed to receive the Eucharist well?
In 2016 the cardinal chided German Cardinal Reinhard Marx’s claim that the Church should “apologize” to homosexuals after the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
“God help us!” Cardinal Napier tweeted. “Next we'll have to apologize for teaching that adultery is a sin! Political Correctness (PC) is today's major heresy!”
