The Cry Of Man
Robert Sarah - At the beginning of this talk, Cardinal Robert Sarah speaks of a method of working: delving into the treasure that the Church and her saints have given us to find the most fitting words to answer the questions of today’s man. These are questions, explains Cardinal Sarah, that have recurred throughout the centuries. It is the cry of man asking for salvation, as the subtitle—identified by David as an effective summary of this wide-ranging dialogue—very wittily specifies.
The certainty that runs through every answer, and ultimately every question, is that there can be an answer and that this answer is Christ. I have tried to limit my own words as much as possible to leave room for the witness of the Gospels, the Church Fathers, and the Saints: those who meet us do not need new words, new doctrines, new paths, or inventions. Instead, they need the words of all time—the everlasting Word of God—to reach us, illuminating the situations we live in today. These were, after all, the two cornerstones of the work: taking every question seriously and tracing, in the Church’s treasure, every answer; that is, providing an adequate foundation that can sustain the hope each man invokes.
Then there is a third point of method: rarely can one man's ability, or even the brilliance, offer an answer. Normally, only the man who is not alone, who does not consider himself alone, who belongs to history, is capable of an answer. Indeed, man is never alone because the Lord never leaves us alone. A community of people helps us feel His presence more deeply if this community has the following of Jesus as its foundation and purpose. This happens to us by being in the Church, even when the Church appears in the form of a small group of believers.
We Need Worshipers!
Prayer is a silent, contemplative, loving gaze toward God. Prayer is looking at God and letting God look at us. This is how the farmer of Ars teaches us. The Curé d’Ars, amazed to see him regularly every day on his knees in silence before the Blessed Sacrament, asked, “My friend, what are you doing here?” And he answered, “Je l’avise et il m’avise (I look at Him and He looks at me)!”111
The then Cardinal Ratzinger, in his homily at the Missa pro eligendo Romano Pontifice, said,
“Having a clear faith, according to the Creed of the Church, is often labeled as fundamentalism. While relativism, that is, allowing oneself to be carried ‘here and there by any wind of doctrine,’ appears to be the only attitude in keeping with today’s times. A dictatorship of relativism is being established that recognizes nothing as definitive and leaves as the ultimate measure only one’s self and its cravings. We, on the other hand, have another measure: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. ‘Adulthood’ is not a faith that follows the waves of fashion and the latest novelty; adult and mature is a faith deeply rooted in friendship with Christ.”222
How dramatically relevant this text by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is today!
The most urgent task is to recover the sense of adoration and to prostrate ourselves with faith and awe before the mystery of God, like the Magi who “prostrated themselves and adored Him.” The loss of the religious value of kneeling and the sense of adoration of God is the source of all the fires and crises that are shaking the world and the Church, as well as the restlessness and dissatisfaction we see in our society. We need worshipers! The world is dying because it lacks worshipers! The lack of worshipers parches the Church. This is the first and privileged place of dialogue with God: the Tabernacle, His presence among us.
The Holy Mass Is Not a Social Gathering
For the same reason, Holy Mass is a necessary and vital appointment with Christ. The Eucharist is the source of the Church’s mission; sacred and beautiful celebrations for God's glory and the people's sanctification are essential in fostering familiarity with Him, that divine intimacy for which our existence yearns. This is also why the Holy Mass—celebrated in the vernacular—must never lose its sense of the sacred, nor betray the word of the Lord Jesus. The Holy Mass is not a social gathering to celebrate ourselves and our works; it is not a cultural display, but the memorial of the Lord’s death and resurrection, which the Church has celebrated for centuries.
The Eucharist is not only the source and summit of the Church’s life, as the Second Vatican Council wisely reminded us; it is also the source of her mission:
“An authentically Eucharistic Church is a missionary Church.”333
We, too, must be able to say to our brothers and sisters, with firm conviction,
“That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we have contemplated and that which our hands have touched, that is, the Word of life [...], that which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you, too, may be in communion with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:1–3).
Nothing is more beautiful than personally and intimately encountering Jesus Christ and communicating Him to everyone. The institution of the Eucharist, moreover, anticipates what constitutes the heart of Jesus’ mission: He is the Father’s envoy for the redemption of the world (Jn 3:16–17; Rom 8:32). At the Last Supper, He entrusts to His disciples the Sacrament that actualizes, until the end of time, the sacrifice of the Cross. We must correct the widespread mentality that reduces the Holy Mass to a mere “replica” of the Last Supper, a fraternal, convivial meeting between friends. It is also—and always—Christ’s Calvary, the bloodless Sacrifice: there is no banquet without sacrifice! The priest knows well that when he ascends the steps of the altar, he is ascending Calvary with Jesus to give his life and to die with Him!
How moving are the words with which Pope Benedict XVI began his Petrine ministry:
“There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to communicate to others friendship with Him. The task of the shepherd, of the fisher of men, can often seem tiring. But it is beautiful and great because it is ultimately a service to joy, to the joy of God who wants to make His entrance into the world.”444
As we repeat in Eucharistic Prayer IV:
“In your mercy, to all you have come to meet, that those who seek you may find you.”
Christ, the Only Savior of Man
My certainty as a man, as a Christian, as a priest, and as a successor of the Apostles is a consequence—an expression—of what I have experienced in life and what the Church, in her wisdom, has always affirmed: Christ is the only way! “I am the way, the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6).
Scripture and Tradition remind us:
“In no other is there salvation; for there is no other name under heaven given to men in which it is appointed that we may be saved” (Acts 4:12).
The prophet Isaiah states that there has never been anyone who has seen or heard of a God doing so much for those who trust in Him (cf. Is 64:3). Isaiah speaks to us as one in love with God; from his words, we know that God is in love with man, made in His image. God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son so that whoever believed in Him might have eternal life (cf. Jn 3:16). If only the world knew this! If each of us always remember this gift, this mercy, this predilection!
We are far more blessed than the prophet Isaiah. He implored that God would rend the heavens and come down (cf. Is 63:19); we contemplate Him in our midst. King David wondered where help would come from (cf. Ps 121); we know that our help is in the Lord Jesus. The entire tradition of the Church teaches that Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Christ, is the only savior of man, and that in no one else is there salvation. Those outside the visible boundaries of Christianity who come to salvation do so always and only through the merits of Christ on the Cross, and not without some mediation by the Church.
Precisely in one of the first responses, I note that these central truths of the Christian faith have recently been reaffirmed (because there was evidently a need) by two fundamental documents: the March 1979 Encyclical Redemptor Hominis, by St. John Paul II, and the Declaration Dominus Iesus, issued in the Jubilee Year 2000.
Without Truth, There Can Be No Ecumenical Dialogue
These two fundamental documents of the Church’s Magisterium—the first being the one with which St. John Paul II opened his pontificate (almost a programmatic text), and the second, issued by the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger—represent the foundation of ecumenical dialogue in truth. For without truth, there can be no dialogue.
This principle of ecumenism was indelibly set forth by the Second Vatican Council. In the decree Unitatis Redintegratio, issued by St. Paul VI on November 21, 1964, we read the conditions for the exercise of ecumenical action and the principles regulating it:
“Even if in the moral field many Christians do not always understand the Gospel in the same way as Catholics [...] nor do they admit the same solutions to the most difficult problems of today’s society, nevertheless they want like us to adhere to the word of Christ as the source of Christian virtue and to obey the Apostle’s precept: ‘Whatever you do, either in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him’ (Col. 3:17).”
Hence, ecumenical dialogue around the moral application of the Gospel can begin. In continuity with the previous Councils (which it specifically references), the conciliar decree further states,
“Therefore, these separated Churches and communities, though we believe they have shortcomings in the mystery of salvation, are by no means deprived of meaning and weight. For the Spirit of Christ does not refuse to use them as instruments of salvation, the value of which derives from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church.”555
Because we are certain of the truth expressed in these words, we dare to adhere to the Church’s claim to be the continuing presence of Christ in the world. That is why we do not fear confrontation with anyone, certain that we can offer to all the Christ who any other road cannot encounter.
The Catholic Church is “the place where all truths meet,” as the great Chesterton wrote nearly a century ago, discovering that the oldest religion unexpectedly remains the newest—even newer than the so-called new religions such as Protestantism, socialism, or spiritualism—because, unlike them, Catholic tradition and truth have remained intact in their validity for two thousand years.
In Christianity, the Answer to Man’s Questions
The answer to every question man asks is found in Christianity. The only possible response to that aspiration for the True, the Good, the Beautiful, the Just, which dwells in each human heart, is Christ.
All religions are, in fact, human attempts to reach the Mystery, human attempts to “babble” something to God and with God. Such an attempt can also be good, for human reason can arrive at certain universal truths, not without the (unthematized) help of the Holy Spirit. The fact that some truth and good can be present in other cultural traditions should cheer us, as it offers possibilities for dialogue and a potential common path. But Christianity is something else entirely!
Christianity is not a human attempt to reach God; rather, it is the proclamation—filled with awe and gratitude—of the historical fact that God has reached man in Jesus Christ, God made man. “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,” St. Paul reminds us (Gal 4:4).
Doctrine Is the Flesh of Christ
As I mentioned in the book, we distinguish between the more pastoral, human level of encounter and the theological-doctrinal level. We know that the former depends on the latter and not vice versa. It is not a theory that depends on praxis (that would be a Marxist principle). On the contrary, good pastoral practice descends from good theology, while bad theology leads to pastoral disasters. In this sense, it is also important to correct the misconception that theology or doctrine is merely theoretical—just “ideas.” They are not!
Doctrine is the flesh of Christ, His visibility in time and history, just like the Church. It is the concrete way of expressing, in time, what the event of Revelation made known to us about God and man. To betray doctrine may, therefore, mean betraying Christ Himself. We do not want to betray our fellow men; we want to share our hope with them. According to what Revelation has shown us, we want them to have access to salvation and trust God’s freedom to judge righteous those who have righteously followed the natural law He placed in their hearts.
Basing our certainty on the right doctrine—that is, on the complete and organic teaching of what Jesus accomplished in signs and words and what His Apostles handed down as truth—does not allow us to consider false or incomplete what has been delivered to us. The Spirit enlightens us primarily through those same words that countless our brothers and sisters have heard before us, throughout the centuries.
We need not invent anything; there is no “evolution” of doctrine that discards what came before. Just as a baby in the womb grows and develops, is born, and matures into adulthood (without ever-growing a third arm or a second nose!), so doctrine develops in an organic manner. It cannot and must not deny anything of what has been; rather, it must grasp its providential essence and bring to men, according to the needs of the times, the Good News that does not change.
Development, therefore, must be “organic,” meaning that any legitimate development and deepening of revealed truth—assisted by reason and guided by the Holy Spirit—must remain absolutely tied to the previous doctrine. There can be no entirely new or disorganized elements, no leaps, and above all, no contradictions. It must always be a development of what already exists, requiring only more complete manifestation.
Hence, we can proudly reaffirm what Scripture and Church Tradition continually remind us:
“In no other is there salvation; for there is no other name under heaven given to men in which it is appointed that we may be saved” (Acts 4:12).
That is why standing before Him, as St. Thomas did by placing his head close to the Tabernacle—almost inside it!—meditating on what Jesus wants to tell us at that moment through the liturgy, through the ordered prayer of the Psalter, and through the witness of His saints, is already Grace. It is already the beginning of change, of conversion, both for ourselves and for the world.
Let us be certain and rejoice—while seeking to correct our limitations and entrust them to the One who can overcome them—because Christianity is not one road among many; it is the Road! “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” Jesus teaches (Jn 14:6). Unmistakable words reveal Christ’s unprecedented claim:He is God!
We believe that God became man. We know that man is the way of the Church (Redemptor Hominis 14). Therefore, nothing that is truly human (evil and sin do not belong to God’s plan) is foreign to Christianity and the Church. In this sense, the Incarnation is the profound reason for the Church's sympathy for everyone. Because of the Incarnation, the Church has been a bulwark against all attempts by worldly powers to enslave, oppress, distort, or destroy man.
It Is Not God Who Died, but Man Who Does Not Recognize Him
A further aspect that seems necessary to emphasize, among the many covered in the book, is the distrust of God. God is seen as a giver of moral principles who thus obstructs our freedom—our supposed full autonomy and self-realization. Contemporary man, Western man in particular, experiences the evil of relativism, of which nihilism is a direct consequence. He allows himself to be carried “here and there by every wind of doctrine” (Eph 4:14–15).
Nietzsche cries out in anguish and guilt,
“Where has God gone? … We are the ones who killed him: you and I! We are all his murderers! But how did we do this? How could we empty the sea by drinking it to the last drop? Who gave us the sponge to wipe out the whole horizon? … God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we, the murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? What holiest and mightiest the world possessed until now has bled away under our knives; who will cleanse this blood from us? With what water could we wash? What atoning rites, what sacred games shall we invent? Is not the greatness of this action too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods to appear at least worthy of it?”
Paradoxically, the one who has died is not God but man himself, who fails to listen to and recognize His presence in history. God Himself is the reason for the existence of all that surrounds us. He makes man and his intelligence shine, offering direction and meaning to our actions.
During his visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on June 7, 1979, St. John Paul II repeated what St. John wrote in his first letter:
“This is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith (1 Jn 5:4) [...] That faith which gives birth to the love of God and neighbor, that one love [...] that is ready to ‘lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ A victory of faith and love [...] brought to a place built for the total denial of faith—in God and in man—and for the radical trampling, not only of love, but of every sign of human dignity. A place built on hatred and contempt for man in the name of a mad ideology, a place built on cruelty. […] In the place where, horrendously, the dignity of man was trampled upon in the name of racial hatred and scorn, the great final victory was won by faith and love.”
Moral Liberalism and Globalist Ethics
Having abandoned God, many have believed that moral liberalism would lead to an advancement of civilization. Yet reality shows that this so-called progress is, in truth, a moral and anthropological decay—a new form of paganism that desacralizes man and his relationships. It even presumes to decide who has the right to live, with the weakest paying the price: the unborn child, the elderly, the disabled, and increasingly all those abandoned, convinced they are a burden to society, to friends, and even to their own families.
The Church, deeply concerned with saving the integral man—body and soul—has always prioritized evangelization, education through schools, and healthcare by founding dispensaries and hospitals. In defending man and the sacredness of his life, we cannot permit the powers of this world—whether national or supranational governments (think of the UN and its agencies, or defense pacts that become offensive)—to dictate utilitarian and inhumane agendas. Let us be wary of the new globalist ethic promoted by the UN; let us be wary of gender ideology!
True Ecology
We cannot speak enough about God, Jesus Christ, or His Gospel—using our words and our entire lives. Ecology, climate change, welcoming migrants, dialogue, mutual tolerance, peace, democracy, freedom, are surely important topics; let us ask if these are truly the mandate Jesus gave to His Church. Our ecology must be the “human ecology,” the human “ecological conversion” Pope Francis describes: we are invited to abandon any mindset in which man feels he must dominate and manipulate nature—even his own nature—through technology. (Laudato si’, 106–108.)
Why would anyone want to change his or her nature? Why violate it with manipulations? Why attempt to change sex, unnecessarily mutilating a body created by and willed by God? We must not mutilate ourselves to fulfill some feelings or tendencies that differ from what God has made us to be. He created us in His image and likeness; male and female He created us (cf. Gen 1:27). We destroy ourselves if we reject being born male or female and decide to mutilate our nature. As Pope Francis says, we must instead “go along with the possibilities offered by things themselves. It is a matter of receiving what the natural reality itself allows, like extending a hand.”
Life Belongs to God
Let us not transform the Church into a purely human, horizontal society, using media-friendly language that makes it popular but strips its message of transcendence. Such a Church interests no one! The world does not need a Church that merely reflects the world itself. We know that life belongs to God because it is given by God. We are not its masters but its custodians; no man may decide to end his own life. No law, constitution, or government has the authority, power, or over a person’s life. If we fail to recognize this fundamental truth, everything else collapses! Gradually, any ethic can be dismissed, leaving only the law of the strongest: which is barbarism—a stronger mother over the child she carries; a stronger adult over a child; an employer over an employee; a billionaire over a nation. Once the restraints of the principles above us have been cast aside, and the rights of God are no longer recognized, what rights remain for man? Let us not shrink from our task; let us not be afraid!
To Revelation Nothing Must Be Added Nor Subtracted
When do we remain confused or ashamed? It happens when we present the “things of God” in a confused, ambiguous, or uncertain way, even falsifying them openly. It happens when we lose all certainty about what is good; when we fear bearing witness to what we have received; when the expectation of the manifested and still-to-be-manifested Glory does not prevail over our momentary interests. We have nothing to invent, nothing to add, and nothing to remove from the divine Revelation, except to enrich it with our personal free adherence so that what has attracted us might attract others as well.
This desire—this “fever” of life for one’s neighbor and for oneself—is beautifully described by St. Gregory of Nazianzus:
“If I were not You, O my Christ, I would feel like a finite creature.” (Literally, “If I were not You, O my Christ, an injustice would have been done to me.”)
“I was born and I feel myself dissolving. I eat, I sleep, I rest and walk, I am sick and then heal. Longings and sufferings assail me without number, I enjoy the sun and the fruits of the earth. Then I die, and my flesh becomes dust, just like that of the animals, which have no sins. Then I—what do I have more than they? Nothing but God. If I were not You, O my Christ, I would feel like a finite creature. O our Jesus, lead us from the Cross to the Resurrection and teach us that evil will not have the last word, but love, mercy, and forgiveness. O Christ, help us to exclaim once again: ‘Yesterday I was crucified with Christ; today I am glorified with Him. Yesterday I was dead with Him; today I am alive with Him. Yesterday I was buried with Him; today I am risen with Him.’”666
One can be truly useful to one’s neighbor, and indeed to the whole world, only as the fruit of a life of prayer, contemplation, silent listening, holiness, and continuous dialogue with God. Freedom comes not from the much-invoked “transparency,” but from the certainty of acting and thinking according to the will of Jesus—so clearly expressed in Holy Scripture, not even one iota of which has been erased (cf. Mt 5:18)—identifying ourselves with Him. This will must be sought and preserved daily using the means the Church indicates: prayer, silence, adoration, and the Sacraments.
The Eucharist is the most vital Sacrament. It is the life of our life, the most precious gift we have inherited—and an inheritance must be preserved, not squandered!
A “Diabolical Project” Against the Tridentine Mass
“In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What was sacred for previous generations remains sacred and great for us as well and cannot suddenly be completely forbidden, or even judged harmful. It is good for us all to preserve the riches that have developed in the faith and prayer of the Church and to give them their proper place.”777
Therefore, even planning to permanently erase the traditional Tridentine Mass—namely, a rite that dates back to St. Gregory the Great (590–604) and, in part, to Pope St. Damasus (366–384), a Mass celebrated by so many saints (St. Padre Pio, St. Philip Neri, St. John Mary Vianney, St. Francis de Sales, St. Josemaria Escrivà)—is not a good thing. This project, if real, seems to be an insult to the Church’s history and Holy Tradition, a diabolical plan that would break with the Church of Christ, the Apostles, and the Saints.
The Pope Is Not an Absolute Monarch
Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that:
“The First Vatican Council did not at all define the Pope as an absolute monarch, but, on the contrary, as a guarantor of obedience to the Word handed down: his authority is bound to the tradition of faith. This is especially true in the sphere of the Liturgy, which was not ‘made’ by a bureaucratic apparatus. Even the Pope can only be a humble Servant of its proper development and permanent integrity and identity. […] The Pope’s authority is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition. Even less can one reconcile a generic ‘freedom to do,’ which turns into arbitrariness, with the essence of faith and liturgy. The greatness of the liturgy—this we must repeat even more—consists in its non-arbitrariness.”888
To Jesus, Through Mary
Let us live every moment of our lives intensely. Intensely does not mean frantically; it means living in tension—like the spark that reveals the current passing between two poles. Our tension is directed to Christ: His presence and coming in glory.
His Holy Mother helps us in this: she was the first creature to recognize and welcome Him, the first to carry Him—as a living monstrance—to her cousin Elizabeth, the first to follow Him on earth by becoming a daughter of her own Son, the only one who is always present wherever He is present. She, who brought about the first miracle, who was present at the supreme sacrifice of the Passion, intercedes for us so that we may be made worthy to receive Him each day “until He comes” (1 Cor 11: 26).
Thank you!
The author has not revised the text and its translations.
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[1] F. Trochu, Le Curé d'Ars Saint Jean-Marie Vianney, Lyon-Paris 1927, p. 223-224.
[2] Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, St. Peter's Basilica, Monday, April 18, 2005.
[3] Benedict XVI, Apostolic Exhort. Sacramentum caritatis, 84.
[4] Pope Benedict XVI, Homily during the Solemn Concelebration of the Eucharist for the Assumption of the Petrine Ministry, April 24, 2005, in Teachings of Benedict XVI, Vatican Publishing Bookstore 2005, p. 25.
[5] Second Vatican Council, Decree Unitatis Redintegratio No. 3d.
[6] Gregory of Nazianzus, Carmi, 2, 1, 74.
[7] Letter of His Holiness Benedict XVI to the Bishops on the occasion of the publication of the Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum on the use of the Roman Liturgy before the reform carried out in 1970.
[8] J. Ratzinger, Opera Omnia: Theology of the Liturgy, p. 158.
