Is his day now far spent?
What Cardinal Sarah and Archbishop Lefebvre say they have always done
The other day on Twitter, someone sent me a recent interview in French with retired Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah. Cardinal Sarah’s tenure as Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship under Pope Francis was spotty and not free from friction or controversy. While he was upheld as something of a hero (and possible future pope) by critics of Pope Francis, others sensed that he and the pope did not appear to be working well together. To his credit — and in contrast to others of his rank — Cardinal Sarah typically refrained from openly attacking Pope Francis or his teachings, but it was clear that their relationship was far from harmonious.
In his book The Outsider: Pope Francis and His Battle to Reform the Church, Christopher Lamb took a close look at Cardinal Sarah’s allegiances and actions, and made a strong case that despite the cardinal’s public affirmations of support for Pope Francis, he often did so while working against the pope’s initiatives and aligning himself with not-so-closeted opponents of the Holy Father. According to Lamb, in an excerpt published in The Tablet, Cardinal Sarah’s 2014 appointment came about because it “was requested by Benedict, and Francis felt duty-bound to respect his wish.”
Lamb went on to explain that his tenure got off to a rocky start “when it took the cardinal’s office more than a year to draw up a 370-word decree allowing for women to be included in the Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual, something Francis had specifically requested.”
Lamb goes on to explain how Pope Francis worked with the Congregation during Cardinal Sarah’s tenure as prefect:
“Francis has publicly rebuked Sarah for suggesting that priests start to celebrate Mass ad orientem, or with their backs to the congregation, and for alleging that the relationship between the Holy See and bishops on liturgical translations is like that of a parent toward a child’s homework or an academic supervisor to a student. The Pope has responded with precise, and clinical, manoeuvres to constrain the cardinal. He corrects him publicly where necessary, and has appointed a raft of new members to the liturgy department who do not share Sarah’s vision.”
Since his retirement in July, Cardinal Sarah has become more vocal and arguably more critical of Pope Francis. For example, in response to Traditionis Custodes, which placed limits on the celebration of the pre-Vatican II form of the Roman Rite, the cardinal penned a critical response, in which he wrote:
“A father cannot introduce mistrust and division among his faithful children. He cannot humiliate some by setting them against others. He cannot ostracize some of his priests. The peace and unity that the Church claims to offer to the world must first be lived within the Church.
In liturgical matters, neither pastoral violence nor partisan ideology has ever produced fruits of unity. The suffering of the faithful and the expectations of the world are too great to engage in these dead-end paths.”
Here he seems to be saying that Pope Francis is a father who has introduced “mistrust and division among his faithful children.” He decries a father who will “humiliate” and “ostracize” members of the flock. And he seems to say that the pope’s decision was an act of “pastoral violence” and “partisan ideology.” No―he doesn’t call out Francis by name. But it’s Francis’s decision that he seems to be criticizing, so who else can he be speaking about?
Yet in the new interview, the cardinal rejected the idea that he has ever criticized the pope, saying, “No one can find a single word, a single sentence that I would have said or written against him.” (Google translation.)
Later in the interview he was asked for his thoughts about the way he is viewed―as a central figure for the traditionalist, anti-Francis faction of the Church. He rejected that notion:
Traditionalist circles have made you their standard bearer.
No, I am not a spokesperson. I affirm what the Catholic Church has always believed and affirmed. I affirm the doctrine and moral teaching of the Church. I am neither a traditionalist nor a progressive. I teach what the missionaries taught me and some died very young to give me Christ. I am not inventing anything, I am not creating anything. I want to be faithful, that's all. God speaks to us as he spoke to Adam and the apostles.
It was this response, and especially the excerpt that appeared at the beginning of the article (“I am neither a traditionalist nor a progressive. I teach what the missionaries taught me. I want to be faithful, that's all”), that struck me. I have read Cardinal Sarah’s largely autobiographical book-length interview with Nicolas Diat, God or Nothing, and there’s a detail about those missionaries that stood out to me as interesting―or even ironic.
First, I want to make clear that I am not trying to disparage those who go into missionary life, and I do not want to question the holiness and good intentions of the missionaries who served Cardinal Sarah’s community. As he tells Diat:
“The Holy Ghost Fathers had a profound impact on Guinean Catholicism. How could we forget the way these priests took care of everyone, even the most wretched lepers? They touched them and treated them, even though the patients gave off an unbearable smell. They taught them the catechism, considering that the sick, too, had the right to be instructed in the mysteries of the faith and to receive Christ’s sacraments” (pp. 36-37).
Later there’s an interesting passage where he brings up (the later excommunicated) Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, whom he describes as influential in Pope Pius XII’s renewal of the missions:
“I can also say that Pius XII was more of an innovator than the superficial critics of his conservatism would have you believe. His encyclical Fidei donum, published in April 1957, on the renewal of the missions, inspired in part by the example of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, then archbishop of Dakar and apostolic delegate for French Africa, was very important for the development of evangelization. … In Guinea, after the foundational work of the Holy Ghost Fathers, the priests whom we have called since then fidei donum (the gift of faith) made possible a remarkable development of the Catholic faith (pp. 83-84).”
Twitter trolls slammed me for pointing out something that jumped out at me from that line in Cardinal Sarah’s recent interview, when he said, “I teach what the missionaries taught me.”
Cardinal Sarah’s statement struck me as ironic because for much of the time of his formation (Sarah was born in 1945, ordained to the priesthood in 1969), Archbishop Lefebvre was the highest authority in the Catholic missionary territory of French Africa, and he was a member―and later superior―of the same missionary order that taught the cardinal during his formative years.
Marcel Lefebvre was appointed to lead the Church in Dakar―first as Vicar Apostolic, and later Archbishop―from 1947-1962, while also serving as Apostolic Delegate over all of French-speaking Africa from 1948-1959. Then―after serving only a few months over the small French diocese of Tulle―Lefebvre was elected superior general to the Holy Ghost Fathers (the Spiritans), a post he held from 1962-1970.
Cardinal Sarah speaks highly of the Holy Ghost Fathers who formed him, as well he should. What strikes me as a bit off is that he claims to be teaching today what they taught him. After all, Archbishop Lefebvre’s rebellion didn’t emerge from a vacuum, and one imagines that his formation, ecclesiology, and spirituality must have been deficient in some way prior to Vatican II in order to make it possible for him to break communion with the pope. Lefebvre's fingerprints are all over the Church of Cardinal Sarah’s formative years.
Besides the biographical overlap between Lefebvre and Sarah, Sarah’s words themselves struck me: “I affirm what the Catholic Church has always believed and affirmed. … I teach what the missionaries taught me ... I am not inventing anything, I am not creating anything. I want to be faithful, that's all.” This is reminiscent of an idea Lefebvre repeated regularly when asked if he was a dissenter, a schismatic, or an enemy of the pope. Here are some examples:
"We are not creating a parallel Church. All that is absurd. We are what we have always been—Catholics carrying on. That is all."
"Precisely, we wish that the Church revive, that the Church live. And what do we do for that? We continue. It is not difficult, it is what we have always done."
"Let us pray to the Blessed Virgin Mary that the bishops and priests of the Society of St. Pius X and all the bishops and priests in the Church may be faithful to their duty to bring about the unity of the Church in the faith of the Church – transmitting what we have received."
"Without inventing anything on our own, we hope to contribute to the restoration of all things in Christ by sharing what we have received from the Church with the Church at large."
“If there is one thing I have always sought, it is not to have personal ideas. We have the ideas of the Church!”
“I’m carrying on what I have always done. For thirty years I worked to train priests and suddenly I’m suspended.”
And of course, on his tomb are marked the words of the apostle St. Paul: "Tradidi quod et accepi" (I have transmitted what I have received) (I Cor. 15:3).
Perhaps it is a coincidence. I am not saying Cardinal Sarah is a Lefebvrist. I am suggesting, however, that his formation under the Spiritans may have included some of the same problematic elements of Lefebvre's formation. To echo, defiantly, the same message that Lefebvre repeated to justify his rebellion against the pope and the unity of the Church, suggests that there are some threads of continuity.
Francis has been more than kind to Sarah, Burke and some sitting U.S. bishops, much like Paul and John Paul were to LeFebvre, Ngo Dinh Thuc and a couple of others in the years after the Council. I suspect that, as his Jesuit training teaches, he is taking the long view. He is certainly playing a long game, and a long game has always been the practice of the church. If we trust the Holy Spirit, who protects the church, this foot dragging by the Lefebvrists, seed vacantists, trades and the collection of visionary kooks are distractions that cannot be sustained. The faith and practice of a billion Catholics cannot be sidetracked by these few thousand unhappy people. Francis knows this and slowly closes the doors on their shenanigans, i.e., the Old Mass.
V interesting comparison Mike. Cardinal Sarah’s protestations of neutrality are not too dissimilar to the message contained in a series of texts I received from a friend on the weekend wherein he stated he would not obey the ‘counterfeit church’ but rather would ‘follow the unchanged church and truths of all times’. In other words, he will not recognise the teaching authority of Pope Francis, as if this papacy is in someway completely detached or isolated from all preceding papacies. It is as if time stood still in (fill in the year that best suits your disposition).