₦airaland Forum

A Pope from Black Africa
He would be the first in history. And he could be
next. Name: Robert Sarah. Author of a revelatory
book
by Sandro Magister
ROME, April 10, 2015 – He has said so himself,
with candor: “I have the feeling that God has put
me here for a short time.” Four or five years, or
even less.
It is natural that this disclosure of Pope Francis
should reignite the conjectures over who will
succeed him.
And immediately bounding to the top of the lists of
the experts and speculators is the cardinal who
has been baptized “the Pope Francis of Asia,” Luis
Antonio Gokim Tagle, Filipino with a Chinese
mother, age 56, who travels by bus, welcomes
vagrants in the cathedral, does not condemn but
embraces, and has even studied theology in the
United States with renowned “liberal” teachers. His
was the joyous face that appeared beside Francis
on the triumphant journey in the Philippines last
January.
But few noted that Francis had brought another
cardinal with him from Rome, who had been in the
islands after the 2013 tsunami to bring “the pope’s
charity,” in his capacity as president of “Cor
Unum.”
His name is Robert Sarah, an African from Guinea,
70 years old. He was for the most part an
unknown, until a book-length interview with him
published in France a month ago revealed his
impressive profile. Francis surprisingly promoted
him last November as prefect of the Vatican
congregation for divine worship, a key
appointment for his new curia in the process of
reform.
For the Church it is the moment of Africa, the
continent of converts, going from 2 million
Catholics in 1900 to 185 million today, and a land
of martyrs, slaughtered like lambs on the shores of
the Mediterranean or slain on a university campus
in Kenya. This too is part of Sarah’s biography.
He was born in a remote village in the savanna,
into a freshly converted family. At the age of 12 he
was circumcised and initiated into manhood in the
forest. He studied to be a priest and became one,
while his Guinea was under the bloody regime of
the Marxist Sekou Touré, with the bishop of
Conakry, the capital, imprisoned and tortured.
He studied theology in Rome, at the Gregorian and
especially at the Biblicum, with rector Carlo Maria
Martini and professors like Lyonnet, Vanhoye, de la
Potterie. He spent a year at the prestigious École
Biblique in Jerusalem.
And then he returned as a humble pastor to his
Guinea, going on foot into the savanna to reach the
very last of the faithful, amid a majority Muslim
population. Until Paul VI made him a bishop in
1978, the youngest in the world at the age of 33.
And he entrusted him with Conakry, as Sekou
Touré became ever more infuriated with this new
pastor and undaunted defender of the faith. After
the tyrant’s sudden death in 1984, they would
discover that Sarah was the first on the list of
enemies to be eliminated.
John Paul II called him to Rome in 2001 and made
him secretary of the congregation for the
evangelization of peoples, to care for the more
than one thousand dioceses of missionary
countries. And when its prefect fell ill he became,
beginning in 2008, the effective first-in-command
of Propaganda Fide, in personal contact with
Benedict XVI, who in 2010 made him a cardinal
and the president of “Cor Unum.”
Sarah has boundless admiration for Pope Joseph
Ratzinger. He shares his idea that for the Church
of today, the absolute priority is to bring God into
the heart of civilizations, both those of ancient
Christian tradition that has been obfuscated or
denied, and those that are still pagan.
It is the same objective that he attributes to
Vatican Council II. This and no other, because the
eclipse of God is the decline of man. “Dieu ou
rien,” God or nothing, is the title of his book, more
than four hundred pages that dazzle with their
profundity and clarity.
Charity for the world’s rejects must also reveal
God. Without shortcuts. It is not acceptable, Sarah
says, that “while Christians are dying for their
fidelity to Jesus, in the West there are churchmen
who are discussing how to reduce the Gospel’s
demands to a minimum.”
Cardinal Walter Kasper, foremost of the great
electors of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is already
thinking about what comes next and is growing
uneasy. He asked in his latest interview: “Will his
pontificate remain only a brief interlude in the
Church’s history?".

source>>>>>
__________ http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351022?eng=y

i hope not, The last thing the devil will do is to be giving US his women, they have been doing so since 2008.

gatiano:
i hope not, The last thing the devil will do is to be giving US his women, they have been doing so since 2008.

I DONT UNDERSTAND U

I see now clearly why Buhari was voted into power.

You have to be able to identify the devil, the devil is known, So is GOD, GOD has shown himself, He is present. What the devil is doing is diverting God's children, their attention away from their Fathers Malachi the last chapter, verse 5 and 6.

Jesus slightly gave us the idea of who the devils are but we pay no attention (John 8:23-45).

well the women means two things, on the physical and on a world stage. Obama blackman was given one woman to rule over (usa), later just few months ago, they considered a british nigerian for prime minister of england, no another one, vatican city(pope), these are all distractions.

Daniel058:
I DONT UNDERSTAND U

gatiano:
You have to be able to identify the devil, the devil is known, So is GOD, GOD has shown himself, He is present. What the devil is doing is diverting God's children, their attention away from their Fathers Malachi the last chapter, verse 5 and 6.

Jesus slightly gave us the idea of who the devils are but we pay no attention (John 8:23-45).

well the women means two things, on the physical and on a world stage. Obama blackman was given one woman to rule over (usa), later just few months ago, they considered a british nigerian for prime minister of england, no another one, vatican city(pope), these are all distractions.

GRAZIE....I.guess u are not a nigerian..

....

grazie as in crazy? where do you think i'm from? because of the Gatiano? or the picture on my profile?

Daniel058:
GRAZIE....I.guess u are not a nigerian..

....

gatiano:
grazie as in crazy? where do you think i'm from? because of the Gatiano? or the picture on my profile?

lol GRAZIE is an ITALIAN WORD FOR "thank you"

I'm sorry ooo brother. Me no know. grasious(spanish i hope). Thankyou.

Daniel058:
lol GRAZIE is an ITALIAN WORD FOR "thank you"

gatiano:
I'm sorry ooo brother. Me no know. grasious(spanish i hope). Thankyou.

OK NO P