“Does God Exist?: The Cry of Man Asking for Salvation” is the title of a new interview book by Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect emeritus of the Congregation — now Dicastery — for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
In the book published in Italian at the end of 2024, the African cardinal answers various questions posed by journalist David Cantagalli and explains that the text “arises from an attempt to answer the questions of the editor … who with authentic apostolic zeal” wanted to ask “difficult questions.”
“I have sought the answers in my personal history and in my heart, in the magisterium of the Church and in that of the popes who have marked my life, and, last but not least, in the fruitful dialogue with friends, priests, and laypeople, who live an authentic passion for Christ and for the Church, bearing witness in the world to him whom they have encountered,” Sarah writes.
In a recent interview with Il Timone of Italy and reported by Religion en Libertad, the cardinal explained why it is man and not God who has “died” in the West: “The West is experiencing a profound identity and anthropological crisis in which man, in his truth and beauty, seems no longer to be aware of his dignity and his vocation to happiness, to the fulfilment of his personal being.”
The cardinal also noted that “it is obvious that all this has remote roots, starting from the substitution of the Augustinian ‘amo ergo sum’ (‘I love, therefore I am’) with the Cartesian ‘cogito ergo sum’ (‘I think, therefore I am’), thus reducing relational ontology to subjective self-consciousness, depriving man of that healthy relationship with reality on which ontology, the knowledge of one’s being, is founded.”
The crisis of faith
Sarah warned that there is in fact a crisis of faith in today’s world and that it is now at “the deepest and most crucial” point.
As for those who give their lives to God, he emphasized that “I would not say that consecrated persons ‘don’t believe’; rather, I am convinced that, precisely because of the cultural conditions unfavorable to the radical nature of virginity for the kingdom of heaven, those who respond to the vocation today have a serious and radical initial intention.”
“The most discussed point is that of fidelity, over time, to the task that God has assigned. In an increasingly hostile cultural context, with the fragmentation of relationships, which does not allow us to perceive the support and warmth of a believing community, it is increasingly complex to live the radical nature of the Gospel. I believe that this is the crucial point for all laypeople and consecrated persons, for all the baptized.”
Regarding those who leave the Catholic Church, the African cardinal lamented that “those who leave are always making a mistake. They are making a mistake because they abandon [their] Mother; they are making a mistake because they commit a very dangerous act of pride, setting themselves up as judges of the Church.”
“Sometimes not everything is immediately understandable, and some things may seem completely inappropriate, not adequately considered, even pastorally unfounded or harmful; despite all this, this does not authorize them to leave.”
Who is Cardinal Robert Sarah?
Sarah, 79, is one of the most distinguished cardinals in Africa and the universal Church. He is a staunch defender of the liturgy, the right to life, the family, and religious freedom. On June 15, when he turns 80, he will no longer be a cardinal-elector for a possible conclave to elect the pope’s successor.
He has criticized gender ideology, an approach that considers gender to be a sociocultural construct rather than identical to one’s sex.
In 2018, during the Synod of Bishops on Young People, he pointed out that “watering down” Catholic moral doctrine in the area of sexuality will not succeed in attracting young people.
He was prefect of the Congregation — now Dicastery — for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments during the pontificates of Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.
He is the author of books such as “God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith,” “The Power of Silence,” “The Day is Now Far Spent,” and “From the Depths of Our Hearts,” the latter written with Pope Benedict XVI.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
