In tapping new liturgy chief, Pope Francis reaches across the aisle
ROME — Just when you think you have Pope Francis figured out, he surprises you. In that spirit, Monday’s appointment of Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea as the new head of the Vatican’s department for liturgical policy will certainly surprise some.
Sarah becomes the second African to have the Vatican’s top liturgical post, after Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze from 2002 to 2008.
When he recently removed US Cardinal Raymond Burke from a senior Vatican job, many observers concluded that Francis simply didn’t want such a strong conservative on his team. Yet he’s now handed over the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to an equally strong conservative in the 69-year-old Sarah, who since 2010 has led a Vatican office called Cor Unum that oversees Catholic charities.
Sarah was part of the conservative opposition at the recent Synod of Bishops on the family to an interim report that contained daringly positive language on same-sex unions and other relationships that fall outside the bounds of Catholic teaching on marriage.
A former Archbishop of Conakry in Guinea, Sarah was also part of the African contingent at the synod that objected when no prelate from the continent was named to the drafting committee for the final document, leading Francis to add Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier of South Africa to the body.
In other words, this isn’t exactly the profile that perceptions of Francis as a “liberal pope” would lead one to expect in his choices for key jobs.
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