In an interview originally published in 2015 in the French weekly Homme Noveau, Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments weighed in, if somewhat obliquely, on the question of the dubia. A quick (and slightly cleaned up) machine translation of the Spanish reprint in InfoCatólica gives us a somewhat rough, but understandable rendering:
The Cardinal feels called to intervene as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments because the present lack of direction involves three sacraments: marriage, Penitence and Eucharist. According to the Cardinal, the level of confusion we are now experiencing is due to a lack of proper training that regrettably affects even his fellow bishops.
Sarah has stressed that each bishop, he himself in primis, is bound by the doctrine of monogamous and indisoluble marriage that Christ restored to its original form and in which man, woman and children find their wellbeing.
This truth cannot simply cease to have consequences for the reception of Holy Communion: “The Church in its entirety has always firmly maintained that no one may receive Communion who is aware of having committed a grave sin, a principle which was definitively confirmed by Saint John Paul II’s encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia.” And the Cardinal-Prefect added that “Not even a pope can waive this divine law.”
It would be wonderful if Cardinal Sarah added the full weight of his name and position to that of the Four Cardinals. May God prompt him to do exactly that.
(See the original Spanish here. We’ve updated our translation with one provided by Jonathan Walker)
UPDATE: It appears that although three separate outlets have reported on this interview in just the past two weeks (see here, here, and here) the quotes in it are derived from an interview originally published in November, 2015. This means Cardinal Sarah has yet to offer a present opinion related to the dubia; though his previous opinions seem very much applicable. We have updated our story to reflect this new information.
Steve Skojec is the Founding Publisher of OnePeterFive.com. He received his BA in Communications and Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2001. His commentary has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Crisis Magazine, EWTN, Huffington Post Live, The Fox News Channel, Foreign Policy, and the BBC. Steve and his wife Jamie have eight children. You can find more of his writing at his Substack, The Skojec File.
It appears that the dominos are beginning to fall…
Cardinals Pell, Muller, and Sarah, not thrown their hats in but have fired warning shots. Yes, it is a start (I suppose).
These cardinals have been stellar during the synod and even after; why are they hesitant to support the 4 cardinals? There should have been solid support for the dubia from all those bishops, pro life organizations, theologians who signed thousands of petitions to PF. Why this hesitancy -I am very disappointed at the temerity of these good people.
Yes, as each day passes you can feel that something very prominent is coming to a head.
A good statement but better would be his public support of the dubia.
Effective opposition to AL not limited to ‘supporting dubia‘. His contribution [as ours] will be what God requires him to do. See my comments here. And he HAS been doing.
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To me, pretty forceful statement. One of the strongest and firmest. And now he has said it twice. Last year, and repeating it again this year.
That’s a weak indirect statement. If he says Francis cannot dispense with Divine Law as he is trying to do with AL then that would be forceful.
… even more forceful ….
… aaand +Sarah fires back.
Mate, in English footballing terms ‘the boy done good’ but we need a more direct long ball attack from Cardinals Pell, Muller and Sarah. They’re trying to pussy foot-pass the ball into the net….. just shoot!!!!
Okay, so we’ve got Cardinal against Cardinal and Bishop against Bishop…now if only…
*** plot twist ***
Benedict says eff the gag order and we get Pope against Pope!
This whole Pope Benedict gag thing. I have to admit it is very puzzling. I’ve read so much Ratzinger/Benedict material that it beggars belief that the retired Pope would NOT have any problems with PF regarding AL and other countless issues. Surely it must be that our Pope Emeritus just doesn’t have wifi … (I’m not kiddin).
Or he’s being kept purposely kept in the dark and pressured not to speak up
Yeah I guess so. I just can’t think of any other logical explanation as that Trekky guy would say.
Spock. His name is Spock
Spock, now there’s a guy who really understands the meaning of ‘black and white’.
There is Cardinal Müller and the popes [one Emeritus] share Archbishop Georg Gänswein doubling up as Prefect of the Prefecture of the Papal Household and the personal secretary of the Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. And then there is Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich whose says that during the time in Church History when there was an attempt to build a church within the Church, the pope was kept abreast of all that was happening. Wisdom may be at work here as one commenter made me see. ‘Relax,’ as Bishop Thomas J. Tobin would say, ‘God is in charge’.
We could never have Pope against Pope.
It would either be Pope Emeritus vs. Pope or Pope vs. Antipope
I believe @skojec demontrated well [to me at least] that there isn’t a possibility of an Antipope, i.e., a false claimant of the Holy See in opposition to a pontiff canonically elected. [Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia > A > Antipope – http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01582a.htm%5D
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Personally I would not rule out Pope and Pope [cf. Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich].
If it were Pope and Antipope the two would have annihilated each other in their very first hugfest.
??!
Personally I would not rule out Pope and Pope [cf. Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich].
I’m afraid that one has been asked and answered, too:
https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/anne-catherine-emmerich-and-the-two-popes/
We disagree.
But I’m correct. 😉
??! Nice!
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It is prophecy – can have more than one realization – so we shall see and I believe, very soon.
Did you read the book yet Steve?
We will know for sure within one year, by the 100th anniversary of the Fatima miracle.
I think so too.
My point simply was that we can’t have two popes. One is pope and one is not.
More I read the stuff that Pope Benedict has to say about Francis the more I think something is very, very wrong.
If I was him I’d get a food taster.
Poisoning popes is so 1970’s,
Yikes!!!!
Still too soon…
Benedict is rumored to have constructed a new light saber.
Does it have a green blade…or red?
Greener than Francis’ – that’s all I’m gonna say.
Funny considering that he was the one of whom people always made fun for looking like a Sith Lord
Early in his pontificate some pointed out an uncanny resemblance between Pope Francis and a clean shaven Obi-Wan Kenobi…which actually makes sense considering Obi-Wan was a moral relativist
“Only a Sith deals in absolutes…”
Speaking of Cardinal opposing cardinal, here is the 3rd secret, not including Part B or the “4th secret.”
“A great chastisement will fall on the entire human race; not today
as yet, not tomorrow, but in the second half of the twentieth century.
No longer does order reign anywhere and Satan will reign over the
highest places directing the course of events. He (Satan) really will
succeed in infiltrating to the top of the Church. Also for the Church a
time of Her greatest trials will come. Cardinals will oppose Cardinals;
Bishops will oppose Bishops and Satan will march amid their ranks, and
in Rome there will be changes. What is rotten will fall, and what will
fall will never rise again. The Church will be darkened and the world
deranged by terror.
A great war will break out within the second half of the Twentieth
Century, fire and smoke will fall from Heaven, the water of the oceans
will become vapors and the foam will rise up flooding and sinking
everything, millions and millions of people will die by the hour and the
survivors will envy the dead.
Death will reign everywhere for the errors committed by the foolish
and by the partisans of Satan, who, then and only then, will reign over
the world. At last, those who will survive all of these events will
once more proclaim God and His Glory and serve Him like before, when the
world was not as corrupted.”
The “second half of the 20th century” has obviously come and gone, our Lady has bought us some extra time by holding back the arm of her Son but it’s near 2017 and I personally fear that time is almost up.
pray the rosary.
Good to recall that Robert Cardinal Sarah is one on 13 Cardinals to have written to the Pope at the beginning of the Synod on the Family 2015 cf. (link:) Thirteen Cardinals Have Written to the Pope. Here’s the Letter in addiction to raisng his voice immediately post Synod on the Family 2015 cf. Four objections, four responses, and one conclusion by Robert Sarah in (link:) Overrated Synod. Before All Else in the Church There Is a Crisis of Faith | http://WWW.CHIESA by Sandro Magister – This is what African cardinal Robert Sarah maintains in his book “God or Nothing” and in the discussion that has followed. An exclusive preview of his remarks in the next issue of “L’Homme Nouveau”. Back then, he uttered just as this recent utterance of his.
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The list of the 13 signatories, according to America Magazine:
– Carlo Caffarra, archbishop of Bologna, Italy, formerly the first president of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family;
– Thomas C. Collins, archbishop of Toronto, Canada;
– Daniel N. Di Nardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, vice-president of the U.S. Bishops Conference;
– Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York, United States;
– Willem J. Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, Holland;
– Gerhard L. Müller, former bishop of Regensburg, Germany, since 2012 prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith;
– Wilfrid Fox Napier, archbishop of Durban, South Africa, president delegate of the synod underway as also at the previous session of the synod of October 2014;
– John Njue, archbishop of Nairobi, Kenya.
– George Pell, archbishop emeritus of Sydney, Australia, since 2014 prefect in the Vatican of the secretariat for the economy;
– Norberto Rivera Carrera, archbishop of Mexico City, Mexico;
– Robert Sarah, former archbishop of Conakry, Guinea, since 2014 prefect of the congregation for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments;
– Elio Sgreccia, president-emeritus of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Vatican City;
– Jorge L. Urosa Savino, archbishop of Caracas, Venezuela.
Source: https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/thirteen-cardinals-confront-pope-francis-over-manipulation-of-synod
I’m shocked that Dolan is on this list. Why, he’s a big supporter of gays/lesbians and even has marched in the Sodomite parade. He also has appeared on Utube video’s welcoming the Sodomites in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and had the ‘rainbow’ carpet for them leading up to the alter. Dolan also has refused to give up the body of the holy Archbishop Sheen to his family for burial in his home town of Pioria, Ill.
God works mysteriously.
I was super surprised as well. Pleasantly surprised but surprised nonetheless…there’s always hope for him, I suppose
Notice the contrast between the serene face of the godly Cardinal Sarah and the wild frenzied look on that guy Don Vito Pinto in the other article.
I was thinking the same thing – the faces of good and evil.
oops
Thank you for the update 1P5/@skojec
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I am usually careful, methodical and thorough in my research but things are not quite aligning as the interview in L’Homme Nouveau http://www.hommenouveau.fr/1480/religion/exclusif—le-cardinal-sarah-repond-a-des-contradicteurs.htm which appears complete, does not have these words ‘each bishop, he himself in primis, is bound by the doctrine of monogamous and indisoluble marriage.’
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It would be good for someone to reach out to Cardinal Sarah and/or L’Homme Nouveau for clarification.
Well that’s just great…
Need for more clarifications…
😉
??!
May God protect this strong and holy man, and may the Holy Spirit guide him, giving him what he needs.
Oh snap. That’s gotta get under the skin of those ivory towered Jesuits.
Actually I would say it’s the outright rejection of training.
I wonder who Cardinal Sarah was thinking about when he wrote this in “La Force du Silence”:
31. Jene cesserai jamais de remercier les bons et saints pretres qui
donnent avec generosite leur vie entiere pour la regne de Dieu. Mais
je denoncerais sans relache ceux qui sont infideles aux promesses de
leur ordination. Pour se faire connaitre ou imposer leur vision
personelle, tant sur le plan theologique que pastorale, ils parlent
encore et toujours. Ces clercs repetent les memes choses banales. Je
serais incapable d’affirmer qu’ils sont habites par Dieu. Qui peut
sentir le jaillissement pur de leur interiorite comme une source qui
viendrait des profondeurs divines? Mais ils parlent, et les medias
aiment les entendre pour recupeter leurs inepties, en particulier
s’ils se declarent favourables aux nouvelles ideologies
posthumanistes, dans le domaine de la sexualite, de la famille et du
marriage. Ces clercs considerent la pensee de Dieu sur la vie
conjugale comme un ‘ideal evangelique’. Le marriage n’est plus une
exigence et une volonte de Dieu dont le modele s’exprime dans le lien
entre le Christ et l’Eglise. Certains theologiens poussent
l’outrecuidance et l’arrogance jusqu’à exprimer des opinions
personelles difficilement conciliables avec la Revelation, la
tradition, le magistrat pluriseculaire de l’Eglise et l’enseignement
du Christ. Ainsi a grand renfort de bruits mediatiques, ils vont
jusqu’à contester la pensee de Dieu.
Just the other day I google searched and scanned for any opinions by Cardinal Sarah of the Dubia and I did not find anything, i found that odd. I agree, he should lend his voice soon.
Stand up Cardinal Sarah and be counted!
Cardinal Sarah should have been the Pope, not Francis
Be prepared. We know things are bad and will get worse, but if my reading of the prophecy of Our Lady of Quito is correct, we can expect things to get so bad that all hope seems lost. Think how that will feel. Prepare with prayer, fasting and confident trust in God. When all hope seems lost, Our Lady will come to our rescue. Not just ours, but the whole world. Her Immaculate Heart will triumph.