Robert Sarah Quotes

Sin blurs man's face. Now Christ came not only to save mankind but also to repair what sin had broken, to snatch man away from everything that disfigures him, so as to restore to human destiny all its breadth and fulfillment.

We bishops ought to tremble at the thought of our guilty silences, our complicit silences, our over-indulgent silences in dealing with the world.

In my life, God has done everything; all I have wanted to do is pray. I am sure that the red of my cardinalate is truly a reflection of the blood of the suffering of the missionaries.

Many expect, as something normal, that God should pour out his mercy on them while they remain in sin...

When he drapes himself in silence, as God himself dwells in a great silence, man is close to heaven, or, rather, he allows God to manifest himself in him.

After his encounter with Jesus, a real Christian changes his conduct.

The idea that would enclose the Magisterium in a beautiful casket, detaching it from pastoral practice that might evolve according to circumstances, fashions and passions, is a form of heresy, a dangerous schizophrenic pathology. I therefore solemnly affirm that the Church of Africa will firmly oppose any rebellion against the teaching of Jesus and the Magisterium.

I don't know who, in the space of three months of taking power, led you to make two decisions of enormous gravity that have reopened great wounds in the hearts of many Guineans.

On that September morning I spent more than an hour with John Paul II. During the meal he asked me my age. I told him that I was thirty-four years old. He then let out a great burst of laughter and exclaimed: "But then you are a baby bishop! Un vescovo Bambino!" There was no arguing with that; I was at that time the youngest bishop in the world...

Baptized persons have the duty to believe not only with their heart but also with their intellect.

On the question of marriage, there is a gulf between some people and the Church. The question, therefore, becomes quite simple: Must the world change its attitude, or must the Church change her fidelity to God?

Africa could become the spearhead of the Church in its opposition to Western decadence

Unfortunately, it is easier to destroy a country than to re-build it.

No prophet ever encountered God without withdrawing into solitude and silence. Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist encountered God in the great silence of the desert. Today, too, monks seek God in solitude and silence. I am speaking, not just about geographical solitude or movement, but about an interior state. It is not enough to be quiet, either. It is necessary to become silence. For, even before the desert, the solitude and the silence, God is already in man. The true desert is within us, in our soul. Strengthened with this knowledge, we can understand how silence is indispensable if we are to find God. The Father waits for his children in their own hearts.

The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise (Ignatius Press; Paperback edition (April 15, 2017)) by Cardinal Robert Sarah (Author), Nicolas Diat (Author)