Cardinal Sarah: ‘The crisis of the Church has entered a new phase’

[Michie]

ROME – In a rare intervention, Cardinal Robert Sarah has said that “the crisis of the Church has entered a new phase: the crisis of the Magisterium.”

Speaking to a standing-room only crowd on 26 October in Rome, at the launch of Bishop Athanasius Schneider’s new book “Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith” (Sophia Press, 2023), the former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments observed that “a true cacophony reigns today in the teachings of pastors.”

Bishops and priests “seem to contradict each other” and impose their personal opinions “as if [they] were a certainty”. The result, the Guinean cardinal said, “is confusion, ambiguity, and apostasy. Great disorientation, deep bewilderment and devastating uncertainties have been inoculated in the souls of many Christian believers”.

Yet stressing a crucial distinction, Cardinal Sarah told those present and watching via live-stream (video here): “When we speak of a crisis in the Church, it is important to point out that the Church, as the Mystical Body of Christ, continues to be ‘one, holy, catholic, and apostolic’… The Church, as the continuation and extension of Christ in the world, is not in crisis. It is we, her sinful children, who are in crisis,” he said.

Drawing upon the Lord’s last discourse in the Gospel of St John, the cardinal further insisted that “the authentic Magisterium, as a supernatural function of the Mystical Body of Christ, exercised and guided invisibly by the Holy Spirit, cannot be in crisis; the voice and action of the Holy Spirit are constant, and the truth towards which it leads us is steadfast and unchanging”.

Within this context, he praised Bishop Schneider’s new Compendium as an aid to those “little ones who are ‘who are hungry for the bread of right doctrine,’” adding that “it will also prove to be an important tool in the essential missionary work of evangelization and apologetics in announcing the Saving Truth of Jesus Christ in our world that so desperately needs it”.

Continued below.

Cardinal Sarah: 'The crisis of the Church has entered a new phase' - Catholic Herald

In a rare intervention, His Eminence Robert Cardinal Sarah has said that “the crisis of the Church has entered a new phase: the crisis o

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[JimR-OCDS]

Cardinal Sarah had to be corrected a few times when he was head of Congregation for Divine Worship in the Vatican.

So, take what he says with a grain of salt.

 

[jamiec]

Cardinal Sarah had to be corrected a few times when he was head of Congregation for Divine Worship in the Vatican.

So, take what he says with a grain of salt.

Cardinal Sarah says some stupid things at times. Such as his asinine remark about communion in the hand. It's a long time since I thought the gentlemen in the Vatican deserved any special confidence because of their positions. The Vatican seems to be as full of crooks, morons, perverts & cowards as any other bureaucracy; wearing scarlet robes does not make a fool or a fanatic wise or good. Scum, after all, rises to the top. If Sarah needed to be corrected when Prefect of the SCDW, he had no business being Prefect of it; that he was appointed, is a damning indictment of the blunderer who appointed him.

With every day that passes, the men in the hierarchy sound and look more & more like the priests & bishops in "Father Ted". But far less amusing, because their asininities & crimes have real-world results.

 

[Wolseley]

Cardinal Sarah had to be corrected a few times when he was head of Congregation for Divine Worship in the Vatican.

So, take what he says with a grain of salt.

Maybe. But at least Cardinal Sarah didn't drag a South American pagan idol into St. Peter's Basilica or sign an asinine "blessings" directive concerning homosexual couples with language so ambiguous that it can be interpreted in exact opposite ways, depending on one's viewpoint, and then whine both times that people were only against it because they don't understand it. Baloney. Christian believers know what's right from what's wrong, and no amount of double-shuffling or whitewashing can change that.

As everyone knows, I am no fan of Bergoglio. I didn't care for his shrug and comment "Who am I to judge?" comment early in his pontificate, and I was sorely disappointed when he blocked (yet again!) the old Latin Mass. (What does it hurt?) But where he really lost me was the "Pachamama" business. What he did there was just plain, simple, flat-out wrong, and I don't care what kind of excuses are used to try to explain it away.

I continue to think, as I have thought before, that many times he lets his desire to be pastoral cloud his judgement on things that were settled by greater theologians than he is many, many centuries ago, and which he tinkers with to the peril of souls. It's good that he's open and compassionate, I agree. But is altering the Deposit of the Faith in order to lure a few thousand borderline "maybe we'll be Catholic if our demands are met" individuals into the Church worth the incredible damage he's doing by causing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Catholics confusion, scandal, and disgust, and driving who knows how many faithful believers away from the Faith?

I think his intentions, to a degree, are noble, but he's a loose cannon in his implementation.