Cardinal Robert Sarah

Cardinal Robert Sarah has warned that Europe is using aid, trade and diplomacy to export ideological values to Africa, arguing that ambiguous language on issues such as abortion and gender is being used to influence sovereign nations Cardinal Robert Sarah has warned that Europe risks using its economic and diplomatic influence to impose heterodox ideological values on African nations through what he described as “ideological colonization”. Speaking at a conference in the European Parliament in Brussels examining relations between Europe and Africa, Cardinal Sarah centred his address on what he called a growing “crisis of language” in international diplomacy, contending that key political concepts have become so ambiguous that they can be used to advance ideological objectives without transparent public debate. The conference, organised by the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group in collaboration with Pro Vita & Famiglia at the initiative of MEPs Paolo Inselvini and Nicolas Bay, brought together politicians, diplomats and representatives of civil society. It opened with remarks from the organisers before institutional greetings from Antonella Sberna, Vice-President of the European Parliament, and Archbishop Bernardito Cleopas Auza, the Apostolic Nuncio to the European Union. The meeting also saw the presentation of a Pro Vita & Famiglia dossier entitled Conditional Aid: The European Union and Africa: Financial, Legal, and Commercial Instruments on Abortion, the LGBTQ+ Agenda, and Sexuality Education . The report uses official documents covering the period from 2000 to 2026 to examine international treaties, parliamentary resolutions, funding mechanisms and African governmental responses relating to European engagement with the continent. Building on themes raised in that report, Cardinal Sarah questioned whether Europe and Africa still understood the language that increasingly shapes international negotiations. “Can we still understand each other?” he asked. “Do the words we use – human rights, dignity, development, freedom, health, gender, family – still mean the same thing to those who pronounce them in Brussels, Strasbourg, Kampala, or Conakry?” The cardinal argued that expressions frequently used in international agreements no longer possess universally accepted meanings. Referring specifically to the phrase “sexual and reproductive health”, Cardinal Sarah maintained that the expression is often understood as including abortion, while the language of “gender equality” may be interpreted as promoting “the deconstruction of the sexual difference between man and woman inscribed in the human body”. According to Cardinal Sarah, such ambiguity allows politically contentious policies to become embedded within international cooperation frameworks without governments or citizens fully recognising their wider implications. “A treaty, a resolution, or an action plan that uses imprecise and ambiguous vocabulary is not an instrument of cooperation, but an instrument of perversion and silent power,” Cardinal Sarah said. The Guinean cardinal argued that whoever controls the meaning of political language ultimately determines the direction of negotiations themselves, describing the process as “a form of cultural and economic neocolonialism”. Much of the address focused on the European Union’s cooperation agreements with African states, particularly the Samoa Agreement signed in 2023, alongside wider EU financial programmes supporting development across the continent. Referring to those frameworks, Cardinal Sarah stated: “Here appears in a verifiable way the ideological colonization: the use of trade and finance to intervene in the criminal and family legislation of a sovereign state, directly violating the principle of self-determination of peoples.” Summarising his appeal, Cardinal Sarah declared: “No to ideological colonization of Africa, but genuine subsidiarity.” Throughout the address, the cardinal referenced papal teaching. He cited Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas , particularly passages warning against manipulative language capable of reducing human beings to statistics. Cardinal Sarah also referred to Pope Leo’s address to the diplomatic corps earlier this year, recalling the pontiff’s appeal that “we need words to once again express certain realities unequivocally. Only in this way can authentic dialogue, free from misunderstandings, resume.” The cardinal also drew upon the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI, questioning whether European legislation presented as neutral in fact advances a particular vision of the human person. “Isn’t European legislation that claims to be neutral toward every anthropological vision but imposes a specific and contestable vision of humanity slipping into the irrationality against which Pope Benedict warned us?” Cardinal Sarah asked. The address likewise echoed Pope Francis’s repeated criticism of what the late pontiff termed “ideological colonization”. Cardinal Sarah recalled Pope Francis’s warning: “Let us be wary of new ideological colonizations that seek to destroy the family.” Developing that argument, Cardinal Sarah criticised funding arrangements and international assistance which he said are increasingly linked to policies concerning abortion and gender ideology. Referring to the Pro Vita & Famiglia report presented during the conference, Cardinal Sarah argued that development partnerships should respect the sovereignty of African nations rather than seek to reshape their domestic legislation through financial incentives. The cardinal also challenged what he described as changing definitions surrounding abortion and sexuality within international discourse. “The lack of access to abortion is defined as ‘violence’,” Cardinal Sarah said, “while the unborn child—the weakest, the most innocent among us—is deprived of any voice, any representation, any rights.” Similarly, Cardinal Sarah argued that programmes promoting sexual education without consultation in receiving countries could themselves constitute a form of external interference rather than genuine international cooperation. As examples of African constitutional traditions, Cardinal Sarah referred to Kenya and Uganda. Kenya’s constitution, he noted, provides that “a person’s life begins at conception”, while Uganda’s constitution states that “no person has the right to end the life of an unborn child, except as authorized by law”. Rather than viewing such constitutional provisions as outdated, Cardinal Sarah described them as “a fragment of legal wisdom… that the West would do well to reconsider rather than correct”. Returning to the broader relationship between Europe and Africa, Cardinal Sarah argued that African societies possess religious and cultural traditions deserving of respect rather than reinterpretation through external political frameworks. “We need respect for Africa’s religious and cultural history, which is not an obstacle to development, as is sometimes insinuated in the corridors of Brussels, but is a fundamental requirement,” Cardinal Sarah said. “A people has the right to live, preserve, and transmit its own religious and family culture, just as every individual has the right to profess their faith.” He concluded by urging Europe to reassess the foundations of its engagement with African nations. “Europe must examine its conscience, listen to Africa, and respect its cultural sovereignty, offering free cooperation unconstrained by ideologies. Africa itself can offer the testimony of a living faith and a sense of family that can help Europe rediscover its own logos .” Speaking afterwards to members of the foreign press on the sidelines of the conference, Cardinal Sarah returned to the principle of self-determination that had underpinned his address. “We must respect the centrality of man, because he is the image of God, just as we must respect peoples in their self-determination,” Cardinal Sarah said. “No one should be forced to accept a law that goes against their nature, against their religious convictions, or against their human convictions. And so we can live together in peace.”

Cardinal Robert Sarah has called for “clarifications” to parts of the interpretation of Vatican II in order to prevent readings that represent “a break with the faith”. The former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments also warned against liturgy becoming “mere entertainment” and said the Church must resist pressure to conform to the modern world Cardinal Robert Sarah has said that parts of the interpretation of the Second Vatican Council require “clarifications” in order to prevent readings that represent “a break with the faith”. In a lengthy interview published by the French Catholic magazine La Nef on May 4, the former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said certain conciliar texts had produced “divergent, even opposing, interpretations”, particularly concerning religious freedom, ecumenism, collegiality and the relationship between the Church and the modern world. “A council must be read within the continuity of the faith as it has always been,” Cardinal Sarah said. “Where certain texts have given rise to divergent, even opposing, interpretations, it is legitimate to call for a deeper examination in order to avoid readings that represent a break with the faith.” His Eminence added: “The Church has nothing to fear from clarity.” The Guinean cardinal said he favoured “clarifications rather than corrections”, arguing that the interpretation of the Council belonged to the Magisterium and had already been “largely initiated” by Pope St John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. He also warned against treating the Council “as one judges a political programme”. Speaking about Pope Francis, Cardinal Sarah said it was “sometimes necessary” for cardinals to exercise “discernment regarding a period in the life of the Church”, while insisting that criticism of a pontificate must always be carried out “with fear of God, with love for the Church, and without ever falling into irreverence”. “A cardinal is not a courtier,” His Eminence said. “Before God, he is a servant of truth and a collaborator of the Apostolic See.” Without directly criticising Francis personally, Cardinal Sarah suggested that aspects of the previous pontificate had generated uncertainty among Catholics. “A pontificate always leaves a mixed legacy: pastoral insights, spiritual emphases, but also sometimes areas of unease or confusion,” he said, adding that he had spoken privately to Francis to express concerns “that practical ambiguity might obscure doctrinal clarity”. The cardinal said that “an era can leave wounds of confusion” and argued that the duty of pastors was “to help restore to the Church a clearer, more peaceful and more theological message”. Cardinal Sarah repeatedly returned to the theme of secularisation within the Church itself, describing the spread of what he called a “modern form of paganism”. “When faith is reduced to sociological language, liturgy to mere entertainment, morality to perpetual negotiation, and the Church to an institution that must adapt to the desires of the times, then something of paganism returns,” His Eminence said. Cardinal Sarah identified “the effacement of the sense of sin”, “discomfort with the affirmation of revealed truth” and “the trivialisation of the liturgy” as signs of an internal spiritual crisis. “When God is no longer primary, even in the Church, everything else is corrupted,” he said. Cardinal Sarah also warned against what he described as the Church’s growing “fear of displeasing the world”, saying that ambiguity was increasingly preferred “to clarity” and “communication to contemplation”. He added: “The world does not expect the Church to repeat its words; it expects it to open Heaven to it.” On the question of the liturgy, Cardinal Sarah rejected what he described as a “war of sensibilities”, insisting that the issue could not be reduced to factions competing for victory within the Church. “The liturgy belongs to the Church, not to political parties,” he said. “The real question is: how can we restore to the entire Catholic liturgy its sacred dignity, its continuity, its orientation towards God?” The 80 year old cardinal has long been associated with the traditional wing of the Church, so his comments should be read in the light of the restrictions imposed on the Traditional Latin Mass and the impending episcopal consecrations of the Society of Saint Pius X. He described the Society’s planned July 1 episcopal consecrations as “objectively serious”, warning that they would further damage ecclesial unity. “Fidelity to Tradition cannot be separated from hierarchical communion,” he said. However, the cardinal has acknowledged that “doctrinal questions” and tensions had accumulated over decades, adding that “truth and charity must go hand in hand”. Cardinal Sarah also reflected on the wider crisis facing western civilisation, describing Europe as “deeply wounded” and increasingly detached from Christianity and even “the most fundamental anthropological truths”. Yet he argued that the collapse of cultural certainties was leading some people back towards religion. “In Europe, we are seeing an increase in adult baptisms and returns to the faith,” the cardinal said. “When cultural securities crumble, some souls rediscover that God alone remains.” Asked about the priorities of Leo XIV, Cardinal Sarah declined to speak directly for the Pope, but said the new pontificate appeared focused on “peace, unity, mission” and “the Church’s doctrinal responsibility”. Having turned 80 shortly after the 2025 conclave, Cardinal Sarah is no longer a cardinal elector and it is now extremely unlikely that he could ever become Pope. However, as has perhaps been seen most clearly in recent years through Hong Kong’s Cardinal Zen, who is 94, cardinals can continue to exert influence long after the age of 80. Cardinal Zen flew to Rome before the conclave that elected Pope Leo to participate in the General Congregations, the pre-conclave meetings of cardinals in which views on the direction of the Church are expressed, where he warned against reforms he considered damaging. If Cardinal Sarah remains in good health, he is likely to continue using his voice to advocate for the traditionalist wing of the Church for years to come.