Robert Sarah

Robert Sarah (2015)

Robert Cardinal Sarah (born 15 June 1945) is a Guinean Cardinal Prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was appointed as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments by Pope Francis on 23 November 2014. He previously served as Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum.

Quotes

• Spiritual crisis of faith

The crisis that the clergy, the Church, the West and the world are experiencing is radically a spiritual crisis. It is a crisis of faith in God. One cannot say that there is no crisis of faith, when we see clearly that the churches in most European countries are empty. As an example: In Germany, every year, there are 200,000 Catholics who leave the Catholic Church, in parallel, 300,000 Protestants who leave the Protestant church. The decline of faith in the real presence of Jesus Christ is at the heart of the current crisis of the Church and its decline, especially in the West. There is really no longer a belief in the real presence of Jesus Christ. After watching a priest celebrate the mass, one can know if he has the faith or not... When the priest has the Eucharist one can know if he has the faith or not... By how they behave when people come to ask for the Eucharist on the language one can know if he has faith or not, the father who treats them badly (that is, he does not know what he has in his hands). One has frequently said (says George Bernanos), one frequently sees with tears of helplessness, laziness, or pride, that the world is becoming de-Christianized, but the world has not conquered Jesus Christ... It is we who have received it through him , it is from our hearts that God withdraws... It is we who de-Christianize ourselves... miserable...

Rejection of God in consciences

God, therefore, is placed on his side. The spiritual crisis that we are going through is almost global, but it has its origin in Europe. The rejection of God is in the Western consciousness. Not only is God rejected, but Frederick Nietzsche, who one could consider the spokesman of the West, claims that God is dead. God is dead and we are the ones who have killed him, we are the murderers of God... to the fear of God in the world of men, Nietzsche opposes the prophecy of the superman capable of replacing God. Today man has taken the place of God. He becomes God and dictates new laws. What God had prohibited, man legalizes today.

• • 'Crisis espiritual de la fe

La crisis que viven el clero, la Iglesia, el occidente y el mundo, es radicalmente una crisis espiritual. Es una crisis de la fe en Dios. Uno no puede decir que no hay crisis de la fe, cuando vemos bien que las iglesias en la mayoría de los países europeos están vacías. A título de ejemplo: En Alemania, cada año, hay 200000 católicos que abandonan la Iglesia Católica, paralelamente, 300.000 protestantes que abandonan la iglesia protestante. El descenso de la fe en la presencia real de Jesucristo está al corazón de la crisis actual de la Iglesia y de su declinación, sobre todo en occidente. Realmente no se cree más en la presencia real de Jesucristo. Después de ver un sacerdote celebrar la misa, uno puede saber si tiene la fe o no… Cuando el sacerdote tiene la eucaristía uno puede saber si él tiene la fe o no… Por como se comportan cuando la gente viene a pedir la eucaristía sobre la lengua uno puede saber si él tiene la fe o no, el padre que les trata mal (es decir que no sabe lo que él tiene en sus manos). Uno ha dicho frecuentemente (dice George Bernanos), uno frecuentemente ve con lágrimas de impotencia, de pereza, o de orgullo, que el mundo se descristianice, pero el mundo no ha vencido a Jesucristo… Somos nosotros que lo hemos recibido por él, es de nuestro corazón que Dios se retira… Somos nosotros que nos descristianizamos… miserables… ::Rechazo de Dios en las conciencias

Dios, por lo tanto, está puesto de costado. La crisis espiritual que nosotros atravesamos es casi mundial, pero ella tiene su origen en Europa. El rechazo de Dios está en la conciencia occidental. No solamente Dios es rechazado, pero Frederick Nietzsche, que uno podría considerarlo como el vocero de occidente, afirma que Dios está muerto. Dios está muerto y somos nosotros que lo hemos matado, somos los asesinos de Dios… al temor de Dios en el mundo de los hombres, Nietzsche opone la profecía del superhombre capaz de reemplazar a Dios. Hoy el hombre ha tomado el lugar de Dios. Él se hace Dios y dicta nuevas leyes. Eso que Dios había prohibido, el hombre lo legaliza hoy.

• • • As quoted in Javier Oliveira Ravasi, "Fue así como impedimos la ordenación de una mujer". Cardenal Sarah. Conferencia (November 16, 2021)

Catechism of the Spiritual Life (2022)

• The Holy Spirit is the One Who, through the imposition of hands and the anointing of the sacred chrism during Confirmation, clothes the Christian with divine strength and makes him become the fragrance of Christ in every place.

The Day Is Now Far Spent (2019)

• We bishops ought to tremble at the thought of our guilty silences, our complicit silences, our over-indulgent silences in dealing with the world.

The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise (2017)

• When he drapes himself in silence, as God himself dwells in a great silence, man is close to heaven, or, rather, he allows God to manifest himself in him.

• At the heart of man there is an innate silence, for God abides in the innermost part of every person.

• No prophet ever encountered God without withdrawing into solitude and silence. Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist encountered God in the great silence of the desert. Today, too, monks seek God in solitude and silence. I am speaking, not just about geographical solitude or movement, but about an interior state. It is not enough to be quiet, either. It is necessary to become silence. For, even before the desert, the solitude and the silence, God is already in man. The true desert is within us, in our soul. Strengthened with this knowledge, we can understand how silence is indispensable if we are to find God. The Father waits for his children in their own hearts.

God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith (2015)

• It is true, Archbishop Tchidimbo was very strict, intensely upright, and endlessly demanding. He used to come visit us at the minor seminary in Kindia. I remember that he insisted on the importance of spiritual qualities, and especially good character, moral integrity, and honesty. I can still hear him thunder to the class: "The first reason to expel a seminarian is for duplicity, the second, for duplicity, and the third, for duplicity."

• On that September morning I spent more than an hour with John Paul II. During the meal he asked me my age. I told him that I was thirty-four years old. He then let out a great burst of laughter and exclaimed: "But then you are a baby bishop! Un vescovo Bambino!" There was no arguing with that; I was at that time the youngest bishop in the world...

• We all must march to the same drum as Christ. The Church is reformed when the baptized march more resolutely toward holiness, allowing themselves to be recreated in the likeness of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.

• After his encounter with Jesus, a real Christian changes his conduct.

• On the question of marriage, there is a gulf between some people and the Church. The question, therefore, becomes quite simple: Must the world change its attitude, or must the Church change her fidelity to God?

• Many expect, as something normal, that God should pour out his mercy on them while they remain in sin...

• Two millennia ago, the apostles followed Christ. They left everything, and their lives were never again the same. The path taken by the apostles is still a model today.

• Sin blurs man's face. Now Christ came not only to save mankind but also to repair what sin had broken, to snatch man away from everything that disfigures him, so as to restore to human destiny all its breadth and fulfillment.

• All human life is a struggle against the shackles of evil, against the slavery of sin, in order to regain true freedom.

• Baptized persons have the duty to believe not only with their heart but also with their intellect.

• Unfortunately, it is easier to destroy a country than to re-build it.

On Africa

• I don't know who, in the space of three months of taking power, led you to make two decisions of enormous gravity that have reopened great wounds in the hearts of many Guineans.

The first clumsy decision was to rename the Conakry airport with a controversial name

The second serious and unjust decision is to have returned to Mrs. Hadja Andrée Touré not only property that does not belong to her or her husband, but to have returned to her property that belongs to God and the Church

Africa is wasting its time and energy in useless and endless debates on concepts of democracy and multipartyism that are completely alien to the requirements of social development and are disconnected from the culture, society and history of our African continent

• Cardinal Sarah blasts Guinea's military junta La Croix International

Books

• Sarah, Robert Cardinal (18 October 2022). Catechism of the Spiritual Life (hardcover ed.). Irondale Alabama USA: EWTN Publishing, Inc.. pp. 336. ISBN 978-1682782934. 
• Sarah, Robert; Diat, Nicolas (22 September 2019). The Day is Now Far Spent (Paperback ed.). Ignatius Press. pp. 385. ISBN 978-1621643241. 
• The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise (Ignatius Press; Paperback edition (April 15, 2017)) by Cardinal Robert Sarah (Author), Nicolas Diat (Author) ISBN 978-1621641919
• God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith (Ignatius Press; Sew edition (September 1, 2015)) by Cardinal Robert Sarah (Author), Nicolas Diat (Author) ISBN 978-1621640509