Cardinal Sarah gives clarity as opposed to those who give scandal

If any priest, bishop, cardinal or even a pope himself orders you out of some threat of obedience to follow error, call him out and let him be anathema!

Listen to what a Catholic Cardinal really sound like.

As for the likes of the others, may their eyes be opened, or closed as heaven sees fit to paraphrase Fr. Nicola Bux.

Overrated Synod. Before All Else in the Church There Is a Crisis of Faith

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” 

by Sandro Magister

ROME, November 19, 2015 – In the four jam-packed pages of the dossier that the French Catholic magazine “L'Homme Nouveau” is about to publish in its next issue, the word “synod” does not occur even once. Much less does one find cited there the “Relatio finalis” that the synod fathers have delivered to the pope.

And yet the topics addressed in the dossier include the most controversial ones from the two-part synod on the family, from homosexuality to communion for the divorced and remarried.

And above all, the author of the dossier was a leader of the highest caliber at the synod. He is Cardinal Robert Sarah, age 70, Guinean, appointed by Pope Francis one year ago as prefect of the congregation for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments, and therefore with competence and authority concerning precisely the three sacraments at the center of the synod discussions: Matrimony, the Eucharist, and Penance.

So why this silence?

Cardinal Sarah has become known all over the world for the extraordinary interest raised in recent years by his book entitled “God or Nothing.”

A book that right from the title puts at the top of list of vital questions facing Catholicism the crisis of faith that it is going through.

Readers of Sarah’s book have sent him many comments, favorable and unfavorable. And in the dossier that is about to come out in “L'Homme Nouveau,” the cardinal responds to a good number of the objections he has received.

But it is precisely what these objections reveal that has convinced Cardinal Sarah even more that the serious case of the Church today is none other than a crisis of faith.

A crisis that lies beneath the questions debated at the synod, because it touches the very foundations of the Catholic faith and brings out into the open a widespread illiteracy concerning the age-old teaching of the Church, present even among the clergy, precisely those who are supposed to act as guides for the faithful.

The cardinal goes so far as to say, with regard to the sacrament of the Eucharist:

“The entire Church has always firmly held that one may not receive communion with the knowledge of being in a state of mortal sin, a principle recalled as definitive by John Paul II in his 2003 encyclical ‘Ecclesia de Eucharistia,’” on the basis of what was decreed by the Council of Trent.

And immediately afterward he adds:

“Not even a pope can dispense from such a divine law.”

The following is a preview - kindly authorized by “L'Homme Nouveau” - of a part of the dossier, in which one may note how, in order to respond to his critics on the questions discussed at the synod, Cardinal Sarah must first give them a refresher course on the basics of doctrine, including those dogmatic constitutions of Vatican Council II that are so often cited but so little known for what they truly say.

The dossier will be published in the French magazine in the issue dated November 21, 2015:

> L'Homme Nouveau

Here is a preview of it, with the original section headings.

Four objections, four responses, and one conclusion

by Robert Sarah



1. DOCTRINE, LET’S VOTE ON IT BY MAJORITY


Q: According to one of my critics, the Catholic Church “is not only the hierarchy of bishops, including that of Rome, but the baptized as a whole. In order to say what is the ‘position of the Church,’ it would therefore be legitimate to assume the judgment of this majority.”

A: The first statement is correct. But the thought of the faithful does not represent the “position of the Church” if it is not itself in accord with the body of bishops.

Vatican Council II, dogmatic constitution “Dei Verbum,” no. 10: “The task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Moreover, this is not a matter of majority, but of unanimity. Vatican Council II, dogmatic constitution “Lumen Gentium,” no. 12:

“The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One, cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples' supernatural discernment in matters of faith when, from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful, they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the people of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the word of God. Through it, the people of God adheres unwaveringly to the faith given once and for all to the saints, penetrates it more deeply with right thinking, and applies it more fully in its life.”

Finally, this unanimity is a sufficient condition for declaring that an assertion is in the deposit revealed by God (as in the case of the Assumption of Mary), but it is not a necessary condition: it can happen that the magisterium may solemnly define a doctrine of faith before unanimity has been reached (as for papal infallibility, at Vatican Council I).


2. COMMUNION FOR ALL, WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION


Q: According to one critic whose fidelity to the priesthood I admire, thousands of priests do not hesitate to give communion to all.

A: In the first place we note the absence of doctrinal authority in this myriad of sacred ministers, who in other ways are certainly respectable. Moreover, no matter how authentic this “statistic” may be, this position mixes up, among persons living in a notorious and habitual state of sin (for example, adultery and permanent infidelity to one’s spouse, frequent and grave fraud in business):

a) a believer who finally repents with the firm intention to avoid falling in the future, receives holy absolution and as a result may receive the holy Eucharist, and

b) the believer who does not want to stop committing acts of grave objective guilt in the future, contradicting the Word of God and the covenant signified precisely by the Eucharist.

This latter case excludes the “firm intention” defined by the Council of Trent as necessary to be forgiven by God. We should specify that this firm intention does not consist in knowing that one will not sin again, but in making the deliberate decision to employ the means suitable for avoiding the sin. Without a firm intention (and apart from a total and non-culpable ignorance), such a Christian would remain in a state of mortal sin and would commit a grave sin by receiving communion.

In the hypothesis that his state is publicly known, the ministers of the Church for their part have no right to give him communion. If they do so, their sin will be more grave before the Lord. It would be unequivocally a premeditated complicity and profanation of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus.


3. REMARRIED AND ACTIVE IN THE PARISH. WHY NO COMMUNION?


Q: A person who writes to me and whose age inspires the greatest respect evokes the case of a Catholic woman, divorced following domestic violence, who lives as “remarried” but participates intensely in the life of her parish. Should this not incite us to give holy communion to this person?

A: I acknowledge the generosity of heart underlying the objection. But this mixes up or forgets various aspects. Here they are.

1. If one undergoes domestic violence, one has the right to leave one’s spouse (Code of Canon Law, canon 1153).

2. The Church allows one to ask, with divorce, for the civil effects of legitimate separation (John Paul II, January 21, 2002, address to the Roman Rota). Simple divorce does not exclude one from the sacraments.

3. A spouse who abandons himself in a habitual way to domestic violence is probably suffering from a psychological illness, which may be grounds for the nullity of the marriage in question from the very beginning (Code of Canon Law, canon 1095 § 3).

4. If the Church declares the first marriage null, the victim could contract another, granted that the other conditions of this sacrament are present.

5. It can happen that a divorced person, for important reasons such as raising the children, may not be able to leave the second spouse. In this case, in order to be absolved and receive holy communion, the person must resolve no longer to commit with this second spouse the acts that, according to divine law, are reserved for true spouses (“Familiaris Consortio,” no. 84). Now, the experience of numerous couples shows that this is often very difficult, but it is nonetheless possible with the help of God’s grace, spiritual direction, and the frequent practice of the sacrament of reconciliation. In effect this latter permits one, if one falls, to start again more firmly on the right way, gradually progressing toward chastity.

6. The participation in parish life on the part of a divorced and remarried person not yet ready to promise chastity disposes him precisely to open his heart to the grace of making this necessary promise (“Familiaris Consortio,” no. 84).


4. THE AFRICAN FAMILY IS NOT WHAT YOU TELL US IT IS


Q: According to another priest who bases himself on his experience as a “Fidei donum” missionary in Africa, the African family does not correspond to the description I have given.

A: I don’t know what African country and diocese this priest is talking about. But in Western Africa, in spite of the massive presence of Islam, in the pure tradition of our ancestors marriage is monogamous and indissoluble. I have spoken of this in my book “God or Nothing.” I have therefore affirmed that “still today, the family in Africa remains stable, solid, traditional.”

I did not intend in any way to say that the non-Christian African family would be a model, since it evidently suffers from the imprint of sin and also knows its difficulties. I simply intended to say that in African culture in general:

1. the family is still founded on a heterosexual union;

2. marriage is seen as being without divorce, in spite of the paradigm of simultaneous polygamy;

3. it is open to procreation;

4. family bonds are seen as sacred.

Isn’t this precisely what my missionary correspondent wanted to emphasize? (I emphasize here the generosity of the “Fidei donum,” meaning those Western diocesan priests who become voluntary evangelizers in mission countries).

However, the question that he raises is another one: it is that of the possible gradual progression of the pastoral evangelization of non-Christian families, still imbued with deviations provoked by sin, but some traditions of which can be evangelized and serve as a point of departure for the proclamation of Christ.

In any case, if my correspondent seems implicitly to accuse me of having reduced “the African family” to that which lives the Christian ideal, neither can it be reduced in the other direction to the polygamist typology, whether “traditional” or Muslim.


CONCLUSION. THE MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH, THIS UNKNOWN TERRAIN


To conclude, I feel wounded in my heart as a bishop in witnessing such incomprehension of the Church’s definitive teaching on the part of my brother priests.

I cannot allow myself to imagine as the cause of such confusion anything but 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 reestablished 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. He has also elevated marriage between baptized persons to the rank of a sacrament, signifying God’s covenant with his people, just like the Eucharist.

In spite of this, there also exists a marriage that the Church calls “legitimate.” The sacred dimension of this “natural” dimension makes it an element awaiting the sacrament, on the condition that it respect heterosexuality and the parity of the two spouses when it comes to their specific rights and duties, and that the consent not exclude monogamy, indissolubility, permanence, and openness to life.

Conversely, the Church stigmatizes the deformations introduced into human love: homosexuality, polygamy, chauvinism, free love, divorce, contraception, etc. In any case, it never condemns persons. But it does not leave them in their sin. Like its Master, it has the courage and the charity to say to them: go and from now on sin no more.

The Church does not only welcome with mercy, respect, and delicacy. It firmly invites to conversion. As its follower, I promote mercy for sinners - which all of us are - but also firmness toward sins incompatible with the love for God that is professed with sacramental communion. What is this if not the imitation of the attitude of the Son of God who addresses the adulterous woman: “Neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on sin no more” (Jn 8:11)?

____________


On the book “God or Nothing" and its author:

> A Pope from Black Africa (10.4.2015)

The “review” of the book made by pope emeritus Benedict XVI, in a letter to Cardinal Sarah:

“I have read 'Dieu ou rien' with great spiritual profit, joy, and gratitude. Your testimony to the Church in Africa, to its suffering during the time of Marxism and to a dynamic spiritual life is of great importance for the Church, which is somewhat spiritually weary in the West. All that you have written concerning the centrality of God, the celebration of the liturgy, the moral life of Christians is particularly significant and profound. Your courageous answers to the problems of gender theory clear up in a nebulous world a fundamental anthropological question.”

Sarah was also one of the eleven cardinals who on the verge of the synod last October spoke out in defense of the traditional pastoral care of marriage in a book published in five languages: in English by Ignatius Press, in Italian by Cantagalli, in French by Artège, in German by Herder, and in Spanish by Ediciones Cristiandad.

And he was also one of the eleven African bishops, including seven cardinals, who also on the verge of the synod called attention to Africa’s contribution to the current season of the Church, in a book published in English by Ignatius Press and in Italian by Cantagalli:

> First Five, Now Seventeen Anti-Kasper Cardinals (31.8.2015)

Sarah was moreover one of the thirteen cardinals who at the beginning of the synod expressed their “concerns” to Pope Francis in a letter delivered to him personally:

> Thirteen Cardinals Have Written to the Pope. Here’s the Letter (12.10.2015)

And the synod fathers subsequently elected him among their twelve representatives on the council of cardinals and bishops that will remain in office until the next synod.

__________


An important article published by Cardinal Sarah in "L'Osservatore Romano" of June 12, 2015, in his role as guide of the Catholic liturgy:

> The Silent Action of the Heart

__________


“L'Homme Nouveau” also has exclusive distribution rights in France for the French edition of “L'Osservatore Romano.”

__________


English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.