The Southern African Bishops' Conference has challenged an AFP report, published in The Irish Times on May 5th, headed "SA bishops defend Clinton Communion", writes Patsey McGarry.
The report stated that Fides, a Rome news agency, had said that "South Africa's bishops have decided there was nothing irregular about President Clinton taking Communion during his visit there". " In a statement on April 3rd the Southern African Bishops' Conference said the local bishop had not been consulted as to whether President Clinton or his wife could receive Communion during Mass in Soweto [on March 29th] "as required by church practice".
Where the priest who administered the Communion was concerned, it was doubtful whether he had "applied his mind to the conditions that needed to be fulfilled as stated in the 1993 norms published by the Holy See and repeated by the Southern African Bishops' Conference ecumenical directory," the statement added.