African conservative to lead the Congregation for Divine Worship

Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah has been appointed head of the Vatican congregation that determines liturgical practices in the Church.

The nomination as prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) fills a position that had been vacant for more than three months, which is an unusually long time.

Many in Rome had been waiting with bated breath to see who would fill the post after its previous incumbent, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, known by some as “little Ratzinger”, because of his closeness to Benedict XVI, was appointed Archbishop of Valencia.

The promotion of Cardinal Sarah, one of the most vocal conservatives at last month’s Synod on the Family, can be seen as a concession to like-minded Catholics who feel distanced by what they see as a Pope bent on liberal reforms. Last month at the Synod, Cardinal Sarah refused to accept any new moves towards welcoming practising gay people into the Church. “The Church has never judged homosexual persons, but homosexual behaviour and homosexual unions are grave deviations of sexuality,” he said.

From 2010, Sarah was president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, tasked with dispensing humanitarian relief and charity in the name of the Pope. In that role he took issue with humanitarian organisations that he has accused of imposing a “European mentality” and morality on Africa in exchange for aid.

But it is unclear how Cardinal Sarah’s conservative orientation will play out at Divine Worship. His leadership there is at the focal point of the battle between those sympathetic to the Tridentine Rite – effectively thrown out by the Second Vatican Council but reinstated by Pope Benedict XVI under his motu proprio Summorum Pontificum in 2007 – and those who wish to consign the old rite to history.

Colleagues say he is not an innovator and “has a great respect for tradition”. He is said to have “a mild interest” in the old rite but according to former staff he usually celebrates Mass in Italian or French, speaking both fluently.

Much attention has been given to an appointment he had made with a Summorum Pontificum gathering in Rome last month. But the organisers of that pilgrimage have revealed that the meeting was in fact cancelled at the last minute, supposedly “because he was very busy after the synod”.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, who served previously at the CDW, said there was no chance of Cardinal Sarah bringing in African-style Masses.

He told The Tablet: “He has a respect for local beliefs but he is not going to try to impose them on the universal Church. He is not going to try to bring the kind of Masses relished in Africa and make them universal.

“In any case he is not going to be trying to carry out his personal agenda but will try to follow the direction the Holy Father wants.”

Cardinal Sarah served as a secretary for the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples from 2001 to 2010.

Before joining the Roman Curia, he was the Archbishop of the Guinean capital Conakry, appointed by Pope John Paul II in 1979 at the age of 34.