Wilfrid Napier

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Wilfrid Fox Cardinal Napier, OFM (born 1941) is a South African prelate, a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and Archbishop of Durban, South Africa.

Styles of Wilfrid Fox Cardinal Napier

Reference style	His Eminence
Spoken style	Your Eminence
Informal style	Cardinal
See	Durban

[edit] Biography

Napier was born in Swartberg, South Africa and ordained a priest in 1970. He first became a bishop in 1980 when he was appointed bishop of Kokstad. In 1992, he succeeded Denis Hurley as archbishop of Durban, a position he still holds. He chose as his episcopal motto the phrase pax et bonum which translated means "Peace and goodwill".

Archbishop Napier, who is black, is the head of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference and a member of the Episcopal Board of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy. Napier was proclaimed a Cardinal Priest of the Church in 2001 and was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI formerly Cardinal Ratzinger.

In January, 2005, Archbishop Napier made controversial statements arguing that government programs to distribute condoms were ineffectual in stemming the spread of HIV. Instead, he proposed programs based around abstinence.[1]