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

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 became archbishop of Durban, a position he still holds.

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 voted at the Papal conclave which elected Pope Benedict XVI.

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]

External link

• An article discussing Cardinal Napier's sentiments about the Papal conclave, before the fact