“African bishops, in their poverty, are today the heralds of divine truth in the face of the power and the richness of certain Western episcopates,” Cardinal Robert Sarah said during a speech to the bishops of Cameroon in April 2024.
The prefect emeritus of the Vatican liturgy office was no less direct a few months earlier during a conference of African liturgists in Senegal, where he strongly condemned the liturgical celebrations which he described as “too ordinary and too noisy, too African and non -Christians”. His remarks aroused controversy across the continent.
Guinea’s first cardinal
This tension – practicing the doctrinal clarity of Africa while denouncing its liturgical styles – reflects the complex relationship of Sarah with its original continent.
Born in Ourous, a distant village in the high lands with a Muslim predominance and animist of Guinea, Sarah was appointed Archbishop of Conakry in 1979 at 34, making him the youngest bishop in the world at the time. Pope John Paul II would have nicknamed him “Boy Bishop”. As a pendant, Sarah publicly denounced the abuses of the authoritarian regime of Sékou Touré.
It was called to Rome in 2001 to serve at the Vatican mission office, the congregation of the evangelization of peoples. In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him president of the Pontifical Cor Unum council, which coordinated the charitable activities of the Catholic Church in the world. A month later, Benedict made him a cardinal – the first in the history of Guinea.
One of Francis’s most fierce criticism
In 2014, a year after his elections, Pope Francis appointed Sarah as the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Cult and the discipline of the sacraments. Although considered a promotion, the move has been largely interpreted as an effort to put it aside.
Sarah quickly became one of Francis’ most serious criticism, notably attacking the Pope’s decision to authorize blessings to couples in “irregular” situations, including same -sex unions. He described the declaration of the “divisor” work – a clear reference to Satan.
He used the same term in reaction to Guard traditionThe Pope’s decree which has restricted the celebration of the traditional Latin mass. Since her retirement in February 2021, Sarah has spent a large part of her time in France, where he remains a favorite among traditionalist Catholics and the conservative media.
