Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Cardinal Sarah maintains different perspective from Pope

Different page from PopeAfter being reprimanded by Pope Francis over the northern summer for calling on priests to face east while saying Mass, Cardinal Robert Sarah is refusing to back down and is becoming a rallying point of opposition to this Papacy, reports The Tablet.

The Vatican’s liturgy chief, who has just released a new book calling for more silence in Church, is once again speaking out about his desire for the liturgy to be celebrated by clergy turning their backs to the congregation.

“It is not a matter of celebrating with one’s back to the people or facing them, but toward the east, ad Dominum, toward the Lord,” the Cardinal said last week in an interview discussing his new book with French magazine La Nef.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has announced he will speak at the inauguration of the new academic year at Rome’s John Paul II institute, instead of the prelate from Guinea, who was to preside at the event.

He will also have noted that on Thursday night, when Cardinal Sarah presented his book, La Force du Silence, at the French cultural centre in Rome, it was attended by a number of senior Church figures known to be sceptical of the direction of Francis’ papacy.

Among them was Cardinal Raymond Burke, whom Francis moved out of running the Church’s supreme court due to his alleged refusal to reform annulment laws, and Cardinal Franc Rode, who once said the Pope was too left-wing and came from a part of the world where they “talk a lot but solve very few problems.”