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The International Atomic Energy Agency reaching a deal with Iran on inspections of its nuclear facilities. The compromise deal reached in the face of Iranian plans to end snap inspections by international atomic experts... When it comes to the coronavirus have we reached the magic moment of "herd immunity"?... The selective reopening of Israel is underway with shops to be open to all but gyms and theaters will only be open to those who have "Green Pass" status... The coronavirus vaccination rate for seniors over age 70 is lowest in three states starting with Rhode Island at the bottom with...

ROME— Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Robert Sarah as head of the Vatican’s office for liturgy, removing an outspoken conservative and possible future pope from the ranks of Vatican leadership. The Holy See Press Office announced Saturday that Cardinal Sarah had stepped down. No successor has been named. The cardinal submitted his resignation as required by church law when he turned 75 on June 15 of last year. But the pope frequently lets cardinals serve two or three years past that age, though not past 80. Last June, the cardinal wrote on Twitter: “For my part, I am...

VATICAN CITY — Vatican Cardinal Robert Sarah said Thursday that the West must wake up to the threat of Islamism after three people were killed at a French church by an attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar.” The Guinean cardinal wrote on Twitter Oct. 29 that “Islamism is a monstrous fanaticism which must be fought with force and determination.” “It will not stop its war. Unfortunately, we Africans know this all too well. The barbarians are always the enemies of peace,” the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments wrote. “The West, today France, must understand...

The cardinal said that omitting Jesus's 'hard sayings' is not charitableCardinal Robert Sarah has said that gay people are called to chastity, and that “we demean them if we think they cannot attain this virtue.” Describing chastity as “a virtue for all disciples”, the Vatican liturgy chief argued that clergy deprive gay people of the fullness of the Gospel if they do not call them to live chastely. In a foreword to the book Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay by Daniel Mattson, the cardinal writes: “To omit the “hard sayings” of Christ and His Church is not charity. Indeed,...

April 4, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) -- The Catholic Church is going through a “serious crisis,” says Cardinal Robert Sarah, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship. And the problem is compounded by the fact that a “significant number of Church leaders underestimate” just how serious the crisis is. The crisis consists in “relativism in doctrinal, moral and disciplinary teaching, grave abuses, the desacralization and trivialization of the Sacred Liturgy, a merely social and horizontal view of the Church’s mission,” the Cardinal wrote in a March 31 address to a German conference on the sacred liturgy. The conference marked the 10th...

In an interview originally published in 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 current disorientation involves three sacraments: marriage, penance and the Eucharist. According to the Cardinal, the confusion we draws its lifeblood from the...

This past weekend the Most Reverend Robert Morlino, Bishop of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin made an announcement of great liturgical importance. Going forward His Excellency will be offering all of his Masses at the Cathedral ad orientem. Make no mistake about it, this is a major development on the liturgical landscape of American Catholicism. While Bishop Morlino is a strong supporter of the Traditional Latin Mass, and has offered it publicly on numerous occasions, his recent announcement pertains to Masses offered in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. This is the positive manifestation of Robert Cardinal Sarah’s call...

“Education,” according to Plato’s Socrates, “is not what the professions of certain men assert it to be”—it is not the putting of knowledge into the soul “as though [one] were putting sight into blind eyes.” Rather, education is the art of turning souls around so that our natural human powers, directed toward “what really is,” may “couple” with reality and give birth to intelligence, truth, and justice. Though it involves human interaction, what defines education is the reorientation by which it facilitates a union between the human and the superhuman. A closely analogous dynamic is—or should be—at the heart of...

You might say—many commentators have said—that with the quick Vatican smackdown of Cardinal Sarah's proposal for ad orientem worship, Rome has spoken and the case is closed. I disagree. On the contrary, Cardinal Sarah has reopened a much-needed discussion about how to increase reverence in the liturgy. His address to a conference in London caused what that city's Catholic Herald is describing in this week's cover headline as A liturgical earthquake. Ten days ago no one was talking about celebrating Mass ad orientem. Now that option is being widely discussed, even in secular media outlets. Cardinal Sarah was not issuing...

Cardinal Robert Sarah made the comments in an exclusive interview with Famille ChrétienneThe Vatican’s liturgy chief has called on priests to celebrate Mass facing east. In an interview with the French Catholic magazine Famille Chrétienne, Cardinal Robert Sarah said that the Second Vatican Council did not require priests to celebrate Mass facing the people. This way of celebrating Mass, he said, was “a possibility, but not an obligation”. Readers and listeners should face each other during the Liturgy of the Word, he said. “But as soon as we reach the moment when one addresses God – from the Offertory onwards...

A high-ranking cardinal in the Vatican hierarchy took an unexpected shot Tuesday morning at the White House’s position on transgender use of bathrooms. The White House, however, would not comment. Robert Cardinal Sarah, one of the top lieutenants of Pope Francis, surprised the 1,000-plus guests during his remarks at the annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. by entering into the “bathroom battle,” a recent and very heated issue in the U.S. “Should not a biological man use a man’s bathroom?” asked Cardinal Sarah, who is prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments...

It is important to recall that silence is a necessary condition for deep, contemplative prayer, and an important component of the liturgy. In an essay published in Italian in L'Osservatore Romano on January 30, 2016, Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, discusses the meaning of silence in the Roman liturgy. The following English translation was prepared from the original, unabridged French text. Many Catholics rightly complain about the absence of silence in some forms of the celebration of our Roman liturgy. It seemed to us important, therefore, in this short...

Liturgy is About God! A Soulful Reminder from Cardinal Sarah Msgr. Charles Pope • April 5, 2016 • Cardinal Sarah, in his book-length interview with Nicolas Diet, God or Nothing, has many good observations on the Sacred Liturgy. His remarks should cause all of us to think as well as to repent.His fundamental insights are that the Sacred Liturgy is about the adoration and worship of God, and that it is our hearts that God seeks.I will present a few quotes from the good Cardinal in bold, black italics while my meager commentary is in plain, blue text.Cardinal Sarah...

French publishing house Fayard is publishing a book with an interview with one of the most impressive Cardinals in the College, the recently-named Prefect for Divine Worship, Cardinal Robert Sarah. "Either God or Nothing" (Dieu ou rien) has the very interesting subtitle "Entretien sur la foi" (Conversation on faith), which certainly calls to mind the groundbreaking book-interview of another Cardinal published three decades ago -- Rapporto sulla fede (Report on the Faith, published in English as... The Ratzinger Report). From its presentation by French magazine Famille Chrétienne, we find the following remarkable extract of Cardinal Sarah's words on a...