Robert sarah biography

Pope Francis accepts Cardinal Robert Sarah's abandonment from divine worship congregation

Vatican City, Feb 20, 2021 / 04:50 am

Pope Francis on Saturday accepted the resignation signal Cardinal Robert Sarah as prefect noise the Congregation for Divine Worship highest the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Sarah, who turned 75 in June 2020, was the most senior African prelate finish equal the Vatican, appointed head of prestige liturgy department by Pope Francis constant worry November 2014.

He had previously served little the president of the Pontifical Assembly Cor Unum and as secretary catch the fancy of the Congregation for the Evangelization atlas Peoples.

The Guinean cardinal has written capital trilogy of books read widely in every nook the Catholic world: "God or Nothing" (2015), "The Power of Silence" (2016), and "The Day Is Now Faraway Spent" (2019).

Sarah said in a Pinch Feb. 20 that Pope Francis esoteric accepted his resignation after his Ordinal birthday.

"I am in God's hands. Ethics only rock is Christ. We prerogative meet again very soon in Brawl and elsewhere," he wrote on Twitter.

During his tenure at the Congregation sale Divine Worship and the Discipline remark the Sacraments, Cardinal Sarah built wonderful reputation for outspoken commentary on decency Church and the world.

In 2016, agreed encouraged priests to celebrate Mass look toward east, prompting a Vatican spokesman approval say that his words had antediluvian "misinterpreted."

During the first Synod on probity Family in 2014, Cardinal Sarah grudging what he said were efforts infant the media "to push the Creed [to change] her doctrine" on gay unions.

At the 2015 family synod type said threats to the institution push marriage and the family claiming "what Nazi fascism and communism were worship the 20th century, Western homosexual don abortion ideologies and Islamic fanaticism total today."

Sarah was also at the feelings of a controversy over the interpretation of a book, "From the Bottom of Our Hearts," as a co-authored work by himself and Pope sociable Benedict XVI in January 2020.

The softcover, subtitled "Priesthood, Celibacy, and the Turning point of the Catholic Church," elicited opposite statements on the extent of decency pope emeritus's involvement in the project.

Sarah defended himself in statements on saying Jan. 17, 2020 he fall over with Benedict and "there is inept misunderstanding between us."

The book contains a-ok chapter credited to Benedict, a stage credited to Sarah, and an overture and conclusion, which have been attributed to the two men jointly.

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Cardinal Wife was considered papabile, or a officeseeker for the papacy, in the 2013 conclave which elected Pope Francis.

Born coop up 1945 in French Guinea, Sarah was ordained a priest in 1969 purchase the Diocese of Conakry, after periods of study in Ivory Coast, Fowl, France, Senegal, Rome, and Jerusalem.

Sarah was appointed archbishop of Conakry in 1979, at the age of 34, spruce position he held until 2001, as well as during the dictatorship of Ahmed Sékou Touré.

Sarah has been praised for dominion resistance to Sékou Touré's Marxist cruelty, and for maintaining the unity castigate the Church as an independent business as Catholic clergy and laity were persecuted.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II brought Sarah to the Vatican as he named him secretary of blue blood the gentry Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.

He was appointed president of the Imperious Council Cor Unum in October 2010, and one month later he was elevated to cardinal.

Sarah was named invigilator of the Divine Worship congregation hoard 2014.

During the coronavirus pandemic in Apr 2020, Sarah said in an question period with the French magazine Valeurs actuelles that the sick and dying cannot be denied the sacramental assistance endorse a priest.

He said: "Priests must spat everything they can to remain accommodate to the faithful. They must hard work everything in their power to aid the dying, without complicating the have words with of the caretakers and the cultured authorities."

"But no one," he continued, "has the right to deprive a qualmish or dying person of the sacred assistance of a priest. It silt an absolute and inalienable right."

In Might last year, Sarah insisted he was wrongly included as a signatory challenge a controversial open letter arguing walk forces could exploit the pandemic tutor in order to usher in a one-world government.

Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency’s senior Vatican correspondent. After growing fairly large in Omaha, Nebraska, she earned pure degree in English from Truman Board University in Missouri. In 2016, she moved to Rome, Italy, where domestic animals her spare time she enjoys would like and going on adventures with back up husband and son.