The Australian cardinal, who died of a heart attack on January 10, has been described by friends and admirers as a "great leader", a "white martyr" and "courageous".

However, when Pell levelled that attack against Pope Francis less than a year ago in a lengthy screed that he sent to all the Church's cardinals, he showed just how courageous he really was - by issuing it under a pseudonym.

It was published last March by Italian journalist Sandro Magister who, after Pell's death, revealed that this "memorandum on the next conclave" was indeed the cardinal's handiwork.

Among other things, it lambasts the Jesuit pope for causing confusion. "Previously it was: 'Roma locuta. Causa finita est.' Today it is: 'Roma loquitur. Confusio augetur'," Pell says.

And he criticises the pope for remaining silent on a number of moral issues, including the Church in Germany's push to bless same-sex unions, ordain women priests and offer communion to the divorced and remarried.

The cardinal was 81 when he died and, thus, he was already disqualified from voting in a conclave to elect Francis' successor.

But that did not stop him from trying to influence the election, as the purpose of the memorandum makes clear.

In fact, Pell was one of the main ringleaders among those in the hierarchy who quickly soured on the Argentine pope.

The big and blunt Australian led the quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to identify an electable papal successor who - as he notes in the memorandum - would "restore normality, restore doctrinal clarity in faith and morals, restore a proper respect for the law and ensure that the first criterion for the nomination of bishops is acceptance of the apostolic tradition".

"The Holy Father has little support among seminarians and young priests"

The late cardinal had a loyal following that includes traditionalists and the doctrinally inflexible (certainly in the English-speaking world), especially among the younger clergy and those who are being prepared to join their ranks.

He states this quite matter-of-factly in his diatribe against the current pope.

"The Holy Father has little support among seminarians and young priests," he claims. There is, of course, ample anecdotal evidence and even certain surveys that support this.

Pell says this "wide-spread disaffection exists in the Vatican Curia", as well.

This poses a major problem for Pope Francis and his vision for reforming the Church.

While most ordinary Catholics around the world are probably not emotionally or ideologically invested in the same issues or concerns that so troubled Pell; and while these Catholics generally have a favourable or even highly favourable view of the current pope; it will be extremely hard to implement Francis' vision and reforms if the Church's clerical workforce is not on board.

Indeed, this unmarried, all-male clergy has become - in many ways - a major obstacle to spreading the Gospel itself, especially in the dynamically evangelical and missionary style that the pope spells out in Evangelii gaudium, his 2013 apostolic exhortation that reads like a blueprint for a revitalized and reformed Catholic Church.

The open, inviting, merciful, non-judgmental, journeying Church of imperfect people that stumbles along trying to discern how to more faithfully love God and embrace and care for all God's creation (its people, other living creatures and our "common home" the earth), is seen as anathema to those who think like Pell.

The late cardinal accuses Francis of watering down the "Christo-centricity" of Church teaching.

"Christ is being moved from the centre," he says, an incredible charge against a man who is probably one of the most radically evangelical popes ever.

Pell says Francis "even seems to be confused about the importance of a strict monotheism, hinting at some wider concept of divinity; not quite pantheism, but like a Hindu panentheism variant". Pell's clerical admirers — as well as those Catholic layfolk that are just as traditionalist and sectarian — agree with that assessment.

Return to a more ancient custom

The synodal process the pope has opened up in the Church — which he clearly wants to be a permanent and constitutive part of ecclesial life, ministry and governance — cannot fully take root or succeed if a significant portion of the Church's ordained ministers do not embrace and support it.

The only real option the pope has to try at least to make sure they do is by expanding the pool of candidates for the diaconate and presbyterate (ordained priesthood).

Without introducing any sort of novelty, and returning to its more ancient custom, the Church should re-open the presbyterate to married men in addition to (and not necessarily in substitution of) those who have the charism and ability to profess life-long celibacy.

The Church should also return to the ancient custom of ordaining women to the diaconate.

As it currently stands, limiting the ordained ministry to just one tiny subset of the People of God no longer serves whatever good purpose the creation of an unmarried and all-male clerical caste system might have originally had.

It needs to be scrapped because the pool of candidates right now is far too shallow and, in manifest ways, alarmingly putrid.

But you can be sure that any such changes would be met with the stiffest resistance - by certain cardinals, many bishops and a whole lot of priests and seminarians.

Most of them would fight to preserve, intact, the special club for which God has "set them apart" from the rest of the baptized members of the Body of Christ.

"Just men, just priests... What a wonderful time!"

Cardinal Robert Sarah, the 77-year-old retired Vatican official from Guinea and another traditionalist icon, revealed just how much the current clerical model is cherished as he shared his memories about Benedict XVI with the French daily Le Figaro immediately after late pope's recent funeral.

"I remember the Year for Priests that he decreed in 2009," Sarah began.

"The pope wanted to underline the theological and mystical roots of the life of priests."

And then the cardinal vividly recalled the "magnificent vigil in St. Peter's Square" to conclude the year-long event with these words:

The setting sun flooded Bernini's colonnade with golden light. The square was full.

But unlike usual, there were no families and no nuns - just men, just priests.

When Benedict XVI arrived in the popemobile, with one heart everyone began to acclaim him, calling him by his name.

It was striking to hear all these male voices chanting "Benedetto" in unison.

The pope was very moved.

When he turned back to the crowd after stepping onto the stage, his tears were flowing. The prepared speech was brought to him, which he left aside, and he freely answered questions. What a wonderful time!

The wise father teaching his children.

It was like time was suspended. Benedict XVI confided in them. That evening he had definitive words on priestly celibacy. Then the evening ended with a long moment of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament...

A wonderful time, indeed.

Just men, just priests. And among them admirers of cardinals such as Pell, Sarah and a number of others - just men, just priests; those who form the stiffest opposition to Pope Francis and his effort to reform the Church.

• Robert Mickens is LCI Editor in Chief. First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

A surprising number of them, usually women, make it a point to tell me with an air of disapproval for what we have on offer that in their home country they only go to Latin Masses.

I have no idea what they expect me to say or do about that.

The one time I asked one such woman if she understood Latin, she said she did not, but used an English-language missal to follow the Mass prayers.

I refrained from pointing out that in that case, she was praying the Mass in English rather than Latin.

The cherry trees in Tokyo will bloom in a couple of weeks, and the tourism season will once again be upon us.

While I look forward to the cherries, when for about two weeks Tokyo may be the most beautiful metropolis in the world as well as the largest, I have some apprehension about the tourists.

My apprehension is due to the fact that they may confront me with a powerful ally.

Cardinal Sarah is the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship. In other words, the cardinal is the Vatican prelate in charge of the church's liturgy.

In that role, he has been an enemy of what has been achieved in the church's worship since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

When Pope Francis asked that provision be made for women to be part of the ceremony of washing of feet on Holy Thursday, the cardinal delayed action for more than a year.

He was corrected by the pope for his insistence that Mass be celebrated with the priest facing away from the congregation.

The pope gave him a public dressing down for minimizing the import of papal support for restoring authority over liturgical translations to the bishops, as was mandated by an ecumenical council.

Cardinal Sarah's latest foray has been to attack the reception of communion in the hand as evil, the work of the devil.

How am I or others to respond when, as may well happen, we are confronted by people who say they have the cardinal on their side as they want no part in the majority of the world's Catholics at worship?

I could point out that the appointment of Vatican prefects has nothing to do with their expertise or even interest.

The only qualification they need is a red hat and Cardinal Sarah, who clearly does not know or understand either liturgical history or theology, has that qualification.

The other, and main, qualification is, of course, their appointment by the pope and their ongoing tenure in their position, since they hold it at the pleasure of the pontiff.

If Cardinal Sarah with his uninformed piety remains in office, it means he has the endorsement of the pope.

How can I respond to that?

Pope Francis apparently has his reasons for keeping Cardinal Sarah in his present position at the Vatican, but those reasons do not play well or even make sense where the church really lives.

The pope's rationale for keeping the cardinal as point man for liturgy is of no help or use to those of us outside the Vatican.

It is time for Cardinal Sarah to receive a pink slip. Continue reading

In an introduction to a new book about Communion practices, the cardinal writes, "We can understand how the most insidious diabolical attack consists in trying to extinguish faith in the Eucharist, sowing errors and favoring an unsuitable manner of receiving it," according to a translation published by PrayTellBlog.

"Truly the war between Michael and his Angels on one side, and Lucifer on the other, continues in the heart of the faithful: Satan's target is the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated host."

Cardinal Sarah questions why Catholics stand—rather than kneel—and receive Communion in the hand and asks, "Why this attitude of lack of submission to the signs of God?"

The Vatican allows the faithful to receive Communion in the hand in nations around the world and the practice has become nearly universal in many countries, including in the United States.

Timothy Johnston, a former diocesan liturgy director who now writes for the Chicago-based Liturgy Training Publications, told America that "to equate standing and receiving in the hand to Satan is irresponsible and continues to polarize the Christian community."

"However one chooses to receive holy Communion, it must be done with great reverence. Such reverence is something which we can all agree to seek more fully, no matter our posture," he said, adding that the cardinal's words "deny a valid practice inherited from the early church."

John F. Baldovin, S.J., a professor of historical and liturgical theology at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, said in an email to America that Cardinal Sarah's remarks "betray a fundamental disagreement with a theology and piety of the Eucharist that understand the act of Communion as an act of a loving Savior who wishes to make us a part of his body—both in receiving the sacrament itself and in becoming more a part of his body which is the church." Continue reading

• Michael J. O'Loughlin is the national correspondent for America.

Open a liberal Catholic periodical and you are likely to find a call for the dismissal of the Guinean cardinal who heads the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship: "It's past time for [Pope Francis] to replace Cardinal Sarah" (Maureen Fiedler, National Catholic Reporter);

"New wine might be needed at the Congregation for Divine Worship" (Christopher Lamb, the Tablet); "Curia officials who refuse to get with Francis's programme should leave. Or the Pope should send them somewhere else" (Robert Mickens, Commonweal);

"Francis must put his foot down. Cardinals like Robert Sarah … may feel that with a papacy heading in the wrong direction, foot-dragging is a duty. But that does not mean Francis has to put up with them" (The Editors, the Tablet).

Sarah was not always treated as the most dangerous man in Christendom. When he was appointed to his post by Pope Francis in 2014, he enjoyed the goodwill even of those who criticise him today.

Mickens described him as "unambitious, a good listener and, despite showing a clear conservative side since coming to Rome … a ‘Vatican II man' ".

Lamb was told by his sources that Sarah was someone liberals could like, the kind of bishop who was sympathetic to "inculturation".

John Allen summed up the consensus around the Vatican: Sarah was a low-profile bishop, "warm, funny and modest".

All that changed on October 6, 2015, the third day of the contentious synod on the family.

The synod fathers were riven by the seemingly competing demands of reaching out to people who felt stigmatised by the Church's sexual teaching and boldly proclaiming truth to a hostile world.

In what has come to be known as the "apocalyptic beasts" speech, Sarah insisted that both were possible. "We are not contending against creatures of flesh and blood," he told his brother bishops.

"We need to be inclusive and welcoming to all that is human." But the Church must still proclaim the truth in the face of two great challenges.

"On the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism." Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic Herald article by Matthew Schmitz, literary editor of First Things and a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.
• Image: LifeSite

American Cardinal Raymond Burke was recently dismissed as a "disappointed man" upset over the loss of his power by fellow Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, coordinator of Pope Francis's "C9" council of cardinal advisers.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, head of the Vatican's liturgy department, was praised by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI as someone with whom the liturgy is in "good hands."

Maradiaga's comments on Burke came in a new interview book with his fellow Salesian, Father Antonio Carriero, titled Solo il Vangelo è rivoluzionario ("Only the Gospel is Revolutionary"), published in Italy by Piemme.

Burke, who was removed by Pope Francis in November 2014 as head of the Vatican's supreme court, is widely seen as the leader of the conservative opposition to the pontiff's document on the family Amoris Laetita and its cautious opening to Communion for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.

He was among four cardinals who submitted a set of questions, called dubia, to Francis, seeking to dispel what they described as "grave disorientation and great confusion" created by the document.

In the new interview, Maradiaga comes out swinging.

"That cardinal who sustains this," Maradiaga said, referring to the criticism of Amoris, "is a disappointed man, in that he wanted power and lost it. He thought he was the maximum authority in the United States.

"He's not the magisterium," Maradiaga said, referring to the authority to issue official teaching. "The Holy Father is the magisterium, and he's the one who teaches the whole Church. This other [person] speaks only his own thoughts, which don't merit further comment.

"They are the words," Maradiaga said, "of a poor man." Continue reading

Source and Image:

• Crux

Sarah told the 18th Cologne International Liturgical Conference that rather than bring the liturgy up to date, Vatican II destroyed the Church's "mystical essence".

In his opinion the church has "abandoned her Christian roots" since the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), where reforms brought the church "up to date".

Sarah runs the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments.

At the same time. he said Vatican II brought about some "fine initiatives".

"However we cannot close our eyes to the disaster, the devastation and the schism that the modern promoters of a living liturgy caused by remodelling the Church's liturgy according to their ideas," he said.

"They forgot that the liturgical act is not just a prayer, but also and above all a mystery in which something is accomplished for us that we cannot fully understand but that we must accept and receive in faith, love, obedience and adoring silence."

While some Catholics feel they are going through what Sarah describes as a "liturgical war", he suggests they reframe their feelings.

They should see the present situation with the liturgy as an aberration, he suggests.

Instead, the liturgy is "the space par excellence where Catholics should experience unity in truth, in faith, and in love."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• La Stampa
• Image: Catholic Herald

In a last-minute change, he will replace Cardinal Robert Sarah who had been scheduled to open the new year.

The news of Francis's s attendance comes just weeks after he controversially hand-picked two prelates — Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia and Msgr. Pierangelo Sequeri — to head the Institute. Read more

Pope Francis [also] did a pretty good number on Australian Cardinal George Pell by once more drastically reducing his powers as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy (SFE).

The pope issued a new "motu proprio" last Saturday that essentially reverses a 2014 law that had given Pell's office managing control over the Holy See's real estate and investments portfolios.

The new decree returns this control to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) - headed by Italian Cardinal Domenico Calcagno - in order to ensure an "unequivocal and full separation" between the office that manages the Vatican's assets (APSA) and the one that exercises vigilance over (or monitors) that management (SFE).

"I intend to confirm the fundamental line that it is necessary to separate the direct management of assets from the tasks of control and vigilance over management activities," the pope says in the new decree.

"To that end, it is of the utmost importance that bodies responsible for vigilance are separated from those that are being overseen," he writes.

In essence this means the only area of Vatican finances that will be directly controlled by Pell's office are human resources and payroll. APSA resumes full control of asset management, purchasing and contracts, as well as support services such as information technology.

Many in the Vatican are shaking their heads because, after spending millions of dollars on big-name, international consultancy companies to help reform the Holy See's financial management, it seems like everything has returned to the way things were before Pope Francis even began the costly reforms.

It seems as if the new Secretariat for the Economy has merely been given a more beefed-up role of oversight - and with some real teeth - than that which the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See (now in institutional limbo) was originally intended to have.

I am not surprised. Continue reading

• Robert Mickens writes Letters from Rome each week for Global Pulse. See link: globalpulsemagazine.com

Francis met with Cardinal Robert Sarah, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, on July 10.

This followed comments by the cardinal at a liturgy conference in London last week.

Cardinal Sarah invited priests to start celebrating the Mass "ad orientem", towards the liturgical east, from the first Sunday of Advent.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, said that when the Pope visited Cardinal Sarah's dicastery, Francis expressly told the Guinea cardinal that the "ordinary" form of celebrating the Mass is the one promulgated in the missal by Pope Paul VI.

Francis also said that the "extraordinary" form, while accepted under the means expressed by Benedict XVI in the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, shouldn't become the norm.

At the meeting, it was also decided that a statement should be issued clarifying the cardinal's remarks.

Fr Lombardi said some of Cardinal Sarah's expressions had been misinterpreted by the press as a signal that changes in liturgical norms were imminent.

The spokesman also quoted paragraph 299 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal about the placement of altars.

This states that Mass celebrated facing the people is "desirable wherever possible".

Fr Lombardi said the GIRM remains "fully in force".

"Cardinal Sarah has always been rightly concerned about the dignity of the celebration of the Mass, in order to adequately express an attitude of respect and adoration of the Eucharistic mystery," Fr Lombardi added.

But the spokesman rejected the vocabulary of a "reform of the reform" in liturgical practice.

He said that phrase is "at times the source of misunderstandings".

Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster wrote to his priests saying that the Mass was not the time for priests to "exercise personal preference or taste".

Sources

• Crux
• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• Catholic Herald
• Full text of Cardinal Sarah's remarks in London
• Image: Southern Orders

Cardinal Robert Sarah said this at the Sacra Liturgia conference in London recently.

The cardinal said the Pope has asked him to "to study the question of a reform of a reform and how to enrich the two forms of the Roman rite".

Cardinal Sarah said that if the Church is to "achieve what the [Second Vatican] Council desired, this is a serious question which must be carefully studied and acted on".

He suggested liturgical study has indicated that some post-conciliar reforms may have "gone beyond" the intentions of the Fathers of Vatican II.

He said that some "very serious misinterpretations of the liturgy" had crept in, thanks to an attitude to the liturgy which placed man rather than God at the centre.

"The liturgy is not about you and I," Cardinal Sarah told the conference.

"It is not where we celebrate our own identity or achievements or exalt or promote our own culture and local religious customs.

"The liturgy is first and foremost about God and what he has done for us."

Cardinal Sarah has previously been outspoken in calling for priests and congregations to face the liturgical east together at Masses, towards the Lord who comes.

At the London conference, he suggested the first Sunday of Advent as a good time for priests to start this practice.

The cardinal said: "I ask you to implement this practice wherever possible".

He added that "prudence" and catechesis would be necessary,

"Your own pastoral judgement will determine how and when this is possible, but perhaps beginning this on the first Sunday of Advent this year, when we attend ‘the Lord who will come' and ‘who will not delay'."

Responding to the cardinal's comments, Fr Anthony Ruff OSB, who contributes to the Pray Tell Catholic blog said: "I wonder how much confusion this will cause, before it's clarified that this is only the private opinion of the cardinal prefect?"

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic Herald
• Image: Herald Malaysia

The Vatican is insisting on a precise translation from the Latin text approved in 2002, as it did for the translation into English.

The planned new translation will be for French-speaking parts of Europe, Canada, Africa and the Caribbean.

It will replace the first translation made after the Second Vatican Council.

A first draft of a new translation from bishops in the French-speaking world was rejected by the Vatican in 2007.

Several francophone bishops' conferences, especially in Belgium, Canada and Switzerland, have raised objections to the latest text.

Bishops from these conferences say that they find the latest text pompous and unnatural, the French daily La Croix reported.

The French bishops are less critical, but still have reservations.

But Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, told the French magazine Famille Chrétienne that Pope Francis had recently told him "the new translations of the Missal must absolutely respect the Latin text".

The latest French text uses the word "consubstantial" in the Nicene Creed.

It also brings back the "through my fault" sequence that had been replaced by "Yes, I have truly sinned" in French.

For the chalice, it turns the current word for chalice "coupe" back to the older "calice", which has become a swear word for exasperated French Canadians.

The introduction to the Offertory ("Orate fratres") has become stilted and hard to recite.

By contrast, a change to the Lord's Prayer has been well received.

The currently used French prayer now says "do not submit us to temptation", which theologians say implies that God tempts people to sin.

The new translation, which France's Protestant churches also support, says "do not let us enter into temptation".

Sources

• The Tablet
• Image: Catholic Herald

The prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal Robert Sarah, made this call in an interview with a French Catholic magazine.

Cardinal Sarah said Vatican II did not require priests to celebrate Mass facing the people.

This way of celebrating Mass, he said, was "a possibility, but not an obligation".

Readers and listeners should face each other during the Liturgy of the Word, he said.

"But as soon as we reach the moment when one addresses God - from the Offertory onwards - it is essential that the priest and faithful look together towards the east.

"This corresponds exactly to what the council fathers wanted."

The cardinal rejected the argument that priests celebrating Mass facing east are turning their backs on the faithful "or against them".

Rather, he said, all are "turned in the same direction: towards the Lord who comes".

"It is legitimate and complies with the letter and spirit of the council," he said.

Cardinal Sarah said the celebration of the Mass "versus orientem" is authorised by the rubrics.

These specify when the celebrant must turn to the people.

"It is therefore not necessary to have special permission to celebrate facing the Lord," the cardinal said.

Last year, he wrote in an article in L'Osservatore Romano that it was "altogether appropriate, during the penitential rite, the singing of the Gloria, the orations and the Eucharistic prayer, that everyone, priest and faithful, turn together toward the east".

This is so as to "express their intention to participate in the work of worship and redemption accomplished by Christ".

The cardinal added in the article that Mass facing east could be "implemented in cathedrals, where the liturgical life must be exemplary".

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• Image: One Peter Five

Cardinal Robert Sarah did this during a speech at National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC, on May 17.

The Guinean cardinal spoke of a religious persecution and threat being visited on families through a "demonic gender ideology".

He called this a "deadly impulse that is being experienced in a world increasingly cut off from God through ideological colonisation".

Cardinal Sarah spoke of the challenges posed by individualism, the exclusion of the poor and the "despicable" discarding of the unborn and the elderly.

The greatest challenges, however, he said, are the challenges facing the family.

Quoting Pope Francis, Cardinal Sarah said that proposing less than what the Church teaches on marriage proposes less than what Christ offers the human person.

"This is why the Holy Father openly and vigorously defends Church teaching on contraception, abortion, homosexuality, reproductive technologies, the education of children and much more."

Cardinal Sarah referred in his speech to the physical persecution suffered by Christians in many parts of the world.

But he added "violence against Christians is not just physical, it is also political, ideological and cultural".

"This form of religious persecution is equally damaging, yet more hidden. It does not destroy physically but spiritually."

The "violence" of cultural and ideological pressure seeks to separate the Christian from his or her conscience and blend them into society.

The cardinal said the devil wants to destroy the family in order to make it harder for people to hear "the Good News of Jesus Christ: self-giving, fruitful love".

He said divorce, cohabitation and gay marriage "cause damage to little children through inflicting upon them a deep existential doubt about love".

Cardinal Sarah called on Catholics to respond to a multitude of threats by being prophetic, faithful, and prayerful.

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• Catholic Herald
• Image: Lifesitenews

Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Robert Sarah took aim at offertory processions in some African countries that include "endless dances".

"One has the impression of being present at a folklore exhibition," the cardinal wrote.

Cardinal Sarah comes from the African nation of Guinea.

In his article, the cardinal also stressed the importance of moments of silence in the liturgy.

"External silence is an ascetic exercise of mastery in the use of the word," he said.

Continue reading

In an interview with aleteia.org, Cardinal Robert Sarah said intercommunion between Catholics and other Christians is not a matter of following one's conscience.

Rather, intercommunion between Christians not united in faith and doctrine would promote profanation, he said.

His comments came a few weeks after Pope Francis spoke to a Lutheran woman with a Catholic spouse, after she expressed her regret they could not receive Catholic Communion together.

The Pope said that while he didn't dare to give her permission to receive Catholic Communion because it was not his competence, he said she should "talk to the Lord and go forward" from there.

The Pope emphasised the fact that if Christians have the same Baptism, they must walk together.

Speaking to aleteia.org, Cardinal Sarah said that many priests have told him they give Communion to everyone.

The cardinal said this is "nonsense".

"Sometimes, an Anglican who is very far away from his church for a very long period of time and who desires to receive Communion, can participate in Mass and receive Communion in the Catholic Church, where there is no sin, and he is properly married," the cardinal said.

"Because they believe in the Eucharist, even if in the Anglican church is it not actually the Eucharist because there is no priesthood.

"But it is rare and would happen under very exceptional circumstances.

"This is something extraordinary and not ordinary."

Cardinal Sarah continued: "But a Catholic cannot receive communion in the Anglican church, because there is no Communion; there is only bread."

"The bread is not consecrated, because the priest is not a priest.

"With the break of Henry VIII with the Catholic Church, priestly orders in the Anglican Church became null and void.

"So the consecration isn't valid, and therefore it's not the Eucharist."

Sources

• Aleteia.org
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Rorate Caeli

Björn Odendahl said this on Katholisch.de in an article entitled "The Romantic, Poor Church".

"Of course the Church is growing there. It grows because the people are socially dependent and often have nothing else but their faith," he wrote.

"It grows because the educational situation there is on average at a rather low level and the people accept simple answers to difficult questions [of faith].

"Answers like those that Cardinal Sarah of Guinea provides."

Continue reading

Cardinal Robert Sarah told French Catholic magazine "L'Homme Nouveau" he ascribed this to "the insufficiency of the formation of my confreres".

"And insofar as I am responsible for the discipline of the sacraments in the whole Latin Church, I am bound in conscience to recall that Christ has re-established the Creator's original plan of a monogamous, indissoluble marriage ordered to the good of the spouses, as also to the generation and education of children," the Guinean cardinal said.

"He has also elevated marriage between baptised persons to the rank of a sacrament, signifying God's covenant with his people, just like the Eucharist."

Continue reading

Archbishop Fisher's comments came after an address by Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia on September 24.

Archbishop Fisher, who attended the address said: "Cardinal Sarah spoke on the family as a light in a dark world."

"Just as in the days of St Augustine and Athanasius, we rely on the African bishops to help us steer an orthodox course in confused times," the Sydney prelate said.

"[Cardinal Sarah] said we should not put the magisterium, the teachings of Christ and his Church, in a 'pretty box' as if they were irrelevant to pastoral practice and daily life.

"He said God's law for the human person and relationships does not 'confine' us: it opens up exciting new possibilities and ultimate happiness.

"This is not moralising, not finger-pointing, not being judgemental towards others, but authentic family life shines as light in today's darkness."

Cardinal Sarah cited Pope Benedict as saying the light of family life was being "snuffed out" due to modern culture.

"Even members of the Church can be tempted to soften Christ's teaching on marriage and the family," Cardinal Sarah said.

Separating what comes from the magisterium with pastoral practice, changing it in "accord with certain circumstances, is a form of heresy", the cardinal emphasised.

"Welcome the mercy of God," he told the audience. "This mercy has a name: Jesus Christ."

"This Spirit, the Holy Spirit charity — love until the end — can overcome all that seems humanly impossible within the family."

"All those wounded by personal sin and the sin of others — the divorced, the separated, those who have cohabitated, who get closed in on themselves and those in same-sex unions — can and must find in the Church a place for regeneration without any finger pointed at them," he stressed.

Sources

• Sydney archdiocese
• National Catholic Register
• Image: Allentown diocese

Speaking at the launch of the German edition of Cardinal Robert Sarah's book "God or Nothing - A Conversation on Faith", Cardinal Gerhard Müller hit out at his national church.

The cardinal accused German church leaders of trying "by hook or by crook" to deconstruct and relativise Catholic teaching on marriage "in order to make it seem that it conforms with society".

This is despite the fact that high numbers of German Catholics are leaving the Church and that its confessionals, seminaries and religious institutions are "empty".

Therefore claims by the German church to a leadership role must be examined critically, Cardinal Müller said.

"We must not deceive people as far as the sacramentality of marriage, its openness for children and the fundamental complementarity of both sexes are concerned," he said.

"Pastoral care has to keep in view the eternal salvation", as opposed to a desire to be popular or accepted in the world, he said.

Cardinal Müller said that the Church should not accept the secularising trend that is most evident in Western Europe, because it is not an "inevitable natural process".

While the trend is strong, he said, energetic evangelisation can counteract it: "With faith you can move mountains."

Speaking a few days after Cardinal Müller's comments, Cardinal Reinhard Marx said German Catholics should not expect their views to be adopted by the world.

Cardinal Marx, who is president of the German Catholic bishops' conference, said that Catholic teaching on marriage was by no means outdated.

The majority of people still hope for a life-long marriage and are open to children.

The Church must encourage this model of marriage and not only consider the possibility that it would fail, he said.

Cardinal Marx said he hopes that the upcoming synod on the family's message would be that lifelong marriage "is possible, but if you fail, we will stand by you".

The synod's purpose is to find common solutions to family problems in the world church, he said.

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Catholic World News
• Lifesitenews
• Image: Catholic News Agency

In a preparatory meeting in Accra, Ghana ahead of October's synod on the family, the bishops stated "we must begin from the faith, reaffirm it and live it for the sake of evangelising cultures in depth".

According to one report, the bishops appear to have heeded the warnings of theologian and anthropologist Edouard Ade, from the Catholic University of Western Africa.

In a presentation, Professor Ade focused on what he called "the strategy of the enemy of the human race".

The professor said the desired goal of some is that the synod approve the blessing of second marriages and homosexual couples, but this appears to be out of reach.

Rather, their strategy will involve opening "loopholes" that could be widened later.

At the same time they will affirm that there is no intention to change doctrine.

Such loopholes could involve particular cases illustrated by proponents, who know they would not remain isolated cases.

Another strategy is to present changes as a balance between the impatience of those who want immediate change on divorce and same-sex marriage, as against a rigorism devoid of mercy.

Professor Ade also warned against "Trojan horses" proposed by activists for change.

These include always attributing a positive value to life arrangements outside of marriage, considering indissolubility an "ideal" that cannot be achieved by all, as well as new language that ends up changing the reality.

In remarks at the start of the meeting, Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah encouraged the bishops not to be afraid of "reiterating the teaching of Christ on marriage".

In an interview this month with French magazine Famille Chretienne, Cardinal Sarah expressed his hopes for the synod.

"At the synod next October we will address, I hope, the question of marriage in an entirely positive manner, seeking to promote the family and the values that it bears.

"The African bishops will act to support that which God asks of man concerning the family, and to receive that which the Church has always taught."

Sources

• L'Espresso
• Image: The Dialog