Pope Francis accepts Cardinal Robert Sarah’s resignation

Pope Francis accepted the resignation due to Cardinal Robert Sarah’s minimum age as director of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Sacrament Discipline, a position he has held since November 2014.

This was stated by the press office of the Holy See on February 20.

Cardinal Robert Sarah was born on June 15, 1945 in the town of Uros, French Guinea (Africa). In 1957, when he was 12 years old, he entered the High School of Saint Augustine in Bingerville, in Ivory Coast, where he taught for three years.

In his book “God or nothing”, the Cardinal Sarah tells how her vocation aroseIn the context of the daily Eucharist, Father (Marcel) Braquemond asked me, who discovered my strong desire to know God and perhaps admired my love for prayer and my devotion to the daily mass, if I wanted to enter the seminar. “

He says, “With the surprise and spontaneity of the children, I answered that I would love it, even though I did not know exactly what to commit myself to, because I had never left the city and did not know the life of the school of theology.”

The cardinal says his parents did not believe him and they went to see Father Brackquemond, who confirmed the news: “My mother, who broadened her eyes, told me that she lost her mind or did not understand what he said. Father. To her and the villagers, all the priests were necessarily white. In fact, it seemed to me that she had lost her mind. It is impossible for him to be a priest!

With relations between newly independent Guinea and Ivory Coast soured in 1960, Robert Sarah returned to study at the Dixin School in Guinea, until the government confiscated church property in August 1961.

After studying only one time at home, the church found a place for him and other seminary professors at a Canadian public school in March 1962. Through negotiations, a theology school was opened where Sarah received her baccalaureate in 1964.

In September of that year he was sent to Nancy Grand School in France. Once again due to strained relations, this time between Guinea and France, he had to interrupt his training. He continued his studies in theology in Sibikutani, Senegal, where he studied between October 1967 and June 1969.

Robert Sarah was ordained a priest on July 20, 1969 at the age of 24. He was appointed Archbishop of Conakry on August 13, 1979, when he was only 34 years old. He received the consecration of the episcopate on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, in the same year.

On October 1, 2001, Pope Saint John Paul II appointed him Secretary of the Congregation for Evangelizing Peoples. On October 7, 2010, he was appointed head of the Pontifical Council, Coronum. A month later, Pope Benedict XVI made him a cardinal.

On November 23, 2014, he was appointed head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the System of Sacraments.

Cardinal Sarah is one of the most important cardinals in Africa and the universal Church. He is a strong defender of the liturgy, the right to life, family and religious freedom.

He has criticized gender ideology on numerous occasions, an approach that considers gender a sociocultural construct rather than a natural thing. In 2016 he said that this is the current It is a “diabolical” and “lethal motive” that attacks families.

He participated in the Synod of Bishops on Youth in 2018, and indicated that The “weakening” of the Catholic ethical dogma in the field of sexuality would not appeal to new generations.

He also participated in the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon in October 2019. In one With the Italian diary Corriere della SeraCardinal Sarah regretted that some had used “the assembly to advance their plans. I am particularly thinking about the ordination of married men, the creation of ministries for women and the mandate of the laity. These points touch the structure of the universal Church.”

“Seizing the opportunity to present ideological plans would be an unworthy manipulation, dishonest deception and insult to God who guides and entrusts his church with his plan of salvation. Moreover, I was shocked and outraged by the use of the spiritual pain of the poor in the Amazon as an excuse to support the exemplary projects of the bourgeoisie and worldly Christianity.” Said the Cardinal.

In January 2020, the Cardinal Sarah and Benedict XVI have published a book on priesthood and priestly celibacy Titled “From the bottom of our hearts(From the bottom of our hearts).

The cardinal was the target of some of the attacks that accused him of lying about the participation of the Honorary Pope but responded with a show Correspondence with Benedict XVI About the text that was written with two hands.

In April 2020, in the face of the restrictions caused by the Coronavirus epidemic, Cardinal Sarah reminded that “priests must do everything in their power to stay close to the faithful” and stressed that “no one has the right to deprive a person who is sick or dies of death.” Spiritual assistance to the priest. It is an absolute and inalienable right“.