Cardinal Sarah suggests Church lacks authority to suppress Latin Mass

Cardinal Sarah suggests Church lacks authority to suppress Latin Mass

Cardinal Robert Sarah questioned whether the Church has authority to suppress the Traditional Latin Mass and urged bishops to be more open to the faithful devoted to it.

Cardinal Robert SarahJohn-Henry Westen/LifeSiteNews

Myles
Allman

Fri Jul 17, 2026 - 12:43 pm EDT

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(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Robert Sarah has indicated he is unsure the Catholic Church has the authority to suppress the Traditional Latin Mass which has nourished so many saints and the general faithful for over 1,600 years.

“I don’t know what authority we have to prevent a liturgy that has been celebrated for centuries,” the Guinean cardinal told Diane Montagna in a June 29 interview, released on Thursday.

“Pope Benedict said that what was sacred in the past remains sacred today,” Sarah reaffirmed. “And besides, this Tridentine liturgy is 1,600 years old. We cannot say that what has been done for 1,600 years is no longer valid now.”

READ: Cardinal Burke says Latin Mass is ‘intimately linked to the very identity’ of Catholic Church

Construing a March message from Pope Leo XIV to the bishops of France as a call to be more open to accommodating the growing Traditional Latin Mass parishes in their nation, the African prelate said this approach should be normative with bishops across the world.

“I think that what was written to the French bishops must apply to all bishops: be more open, so as not to create division for no reason,” Sarah advised. “I think we should encourage all the bishops to be more fatherly, more open, because even within the Catholic Church we have many rites – the Mozarabic rite, many, also the Ambrosian rite. So, I don’t see why we must be so radical as to suppress it, that is, to prevent it.”

Sarah went on to endorse the idea of allowing Traditionis Custodes – the 2021 moto proprio by which the late Pope Francis severely restricted the Vetus Ordo – to “disappear gradually,” as opposed to it being formally abrogated by the Pope, since “the Church is a continuity. What cancels is not a valid text, because the Church is a continuity.”

‘The “Synodal Church” — what does that mean? Nothing’

The interview also covered topics discussed at Pope Leo XIV’s second extraordinary consistory of cardinals held June 26-27, including the implementation phase of the Synod on Synodality presented by Cardinal Mario Grech.

Cardinal Sarah voiced his incomprehension regarding the shift toward describing the Church as a “Synodal Church” offering that he “never understood this change.”

“I have always believed that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church is Mother, the Church is Teacher, the Church is a Bride,” he remarked.

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The Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments noted that neither Church tradition nor Vatican II documents employ this terminology, which instead refers to the Synod of Bishops.

READ: Cardinal Burke: Synodality ‘has to be stopped’ and thoroughly reexamined

Sarah highlighted the risks of transforming the Synod into an assembly of all Christians empowered to vote on doctrine and moral issues. “The Church must teach, and it is the bishops who teach, the priests who teach,” he explained.

“A doctrine is not something one votes on, it cannot be voted on. A moral teaching cannot be voted on; it is a teaching received from God.” He illustrated this with the Church’s clear teaching on homosexuality as disordered, per the natural law and Divine Revelation as expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which cannot be altered by majority opinion.

He contrasted the “synodal” concept with the Church’s missionary nature, as taught by the Second Vatican Council and St. John Paul II. “What does a ‘Church that walks’ mean? The Church is sent — she does not just walk. The Church is missionary.”

“Why change this term, which is so beautiful and so meaningful?” he asked. “The ‘Synodal Church’ — what does that mean? Nothing.”

Church’s doctrine unchangeable, there can be no ‘paradigm shift’

Addressing concerns raised by Cardinal Burke about Study Group No. 9’s report, which advocates a “paradigm shift” and incorporates testimonies from men in same-sex “marriages” who are friends of Father James Martin, Sarah advised that it be reviewed by Pope Leo before distribution to dioceses.

“In any case, if we want to be faithful to Revelation, if we want to be faithful to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, if we also want to follow nature, I think this document must be examined by the Holy Father before it is sent out,” he stated.

He warned against repeating the experience of Fiducia Supplicans, where a Western group of prelates continues to seek imposing this “Western tendency” on the global Church, and expressed confidence that Pope Leo would ensure careful study by those loyal to the Church before any publication for the whole world.

“No one can change moral doctrine or other doctrine,” the African cardinal affirmed. “No, no one. Because it is not ours. The teaching we give is not our own teaching. It is God’s. There can be no ‘paradigm shift.’”

Divine Liturgy key to world peace

With respect to the June consistory itself, Sarah echoed the critique that the topics of the meetings remained too “horizontal,” focusing on social issues like peace, war, violence, and dialogue while giving limited attention to the Church’s internal spiritual challenges and supernatural mission.

“It seems to me that the Church must look at the world above all through the lens of her mission, from the perspective of giving something to the world, which needs light. Not only listening, not only dialogue, but giving the light of God — not our own light, but God’s light — to a world that is in darkness,” he said.

The cardinal argued that war and violence stem from being cut off from God’s peace, and the Church’s primary task is to restore that light, particularly through a sound, faithful liturgy.

“I am convinced that the liturgy is a relationship of trust, of submission to God, and if this relationship is good, God will make our relationships good… He will bring peace to mankind, in the Church, in the world — but a sacred liturgy, not a game, not entertainment,” he emphasized.

‘Christ will not abandon his Church’

In his newly published book 2050, Sarah examines the crisis of faith, the priesthood, and inculturation. He warned of “paganism that is entering the Church,” citing the Amazon Synod’s procession of the Pachamama idol into St. Peter’s Basilica — contrasting it with missionaries who once told new Christians to burn idols — and Pope Francis’s remarks in Singapore equating all religions as paths to God.

“But then what is the point of the Incarnation?” he challenged. “What is the point of Christ’s love, if all religions can lead to God? Then Christ is lying when he says ‘no one goes to the Father except through Me, I am the door.’ That is, sheer paganism has entered the Church.”

Despite these challenges, Sarah voiced firm hope. “The Church belongs to Christ,” not to any pope or synodal project. “Christ will not abandon his Church. He will remain with her until the end of the world. And so the Church will remain the light.”

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Cardinal Sarah suggests Church lacks authority to suppress Latin Mass