
CV NEWS FEED // In a conference delivered to priests, religious, and lay students of theology in Cameroon, Cardinal Robert Sarah warned the African Catholic academic world against the “diseases” that Western actors are trying to impose worldwide and encouraged African Catholics to “take over” after the collapse of European Christianity.
Sarah, the former prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship, delivered the conference titled “The Vocation of a Catholic University in Light of the Teachings of Benedict XVI” at Cameroon’s Saint-Cyprien Theological School in the Diocese of Obala in April. The full conference was published this week in its original French by La Nef (“The Nave”), an independent French Catholic magazine.
During the conference, Sarah extensively quoted Pope Benedict XVI’s writings regarding the true character of a Catholic university. The cardinal explained that “the sense of truth is the cornerstone that must underlie any solid culture. Without the search for truth, there is no foundation. Everything becomes fluid.”
“This is a crucial issue for the future of Africa. I urge you not only to seek the truth but to love it passionately!” he said.
The Guinean cardinal specifically warned African academics to be “wary of being contaminated by the intellectual diseases that the West wishes to impose. The West fears the search for truth. For many Westerners, truth has become an unmentionable term.”
“If you speak of truth,” he said, “you are accused of dogmatism and oppression. But behind these deceptive discourses lies the violence of the dictatorship of relativism, which often masks unspoken financial and material interests.”
“Therefore, it is crucial that your university, which is entirely at the service of truth, be openly and proudly Catholic,” he added.
The connection between faith and culture
Sarah also highlighted that “faith and culture are indissolubly linked. Where man seeks God with integrity, culture flourishes, sciences develop, and civilization becomes more refined.”
“European academics have forgotten this,” he noted. “And their voluntary amnesia sterilizes their culture, which now revels in the ugliness of certain contemporary art or questions its most solid foundations through ‘woke’ ideology.”
“Your generation of African academics must take over!” he exhorted:
By studying under God’s gaze, you will highlight the foundations of all authentic civilization: the difference between man and woman, respect for the elderly. You will rid yourselves of the dictatorship of deadly gender theories and the LGBT lobby, which, under the pretext of liberation, seek to impose their delusion.
“Do not be afraid!” the Sarah concluded:
I repeat to you: you will only be able to respond to the demands of truth and justice if you welcome Christ and let Him illuminate your intelligence, your studies, and your life. You will only be able to serve Africa if you open wide the doors of your universities to Christ.
