The Day is Now Far Spent
ROBERT CARDINAL SARAH
(IGNATIUS PRESS, 385 PP, £16.50)
Tablet bookshop price £14.85 • Tel 020 7799 4064
Many Catholic commentators would have us believe that Cardinal Robert Sarah is in trouble. His book From the Depths of Our Hearts, just published in French and due for publication in English this month, argues that the priesthood is inherently incompatible with marriage. “Ontologically” is the word used by Sarah. Pope Francis is preparing instructions based on recommendations of last year’s Amazon Synod that are expected to lift the requirement of celibacy for clerics in certain Amazon communities. The publication of that book has been seen as a pre-emptive strike on the Pope, designed to pull the rug from under him as he positions himself to change the rules.
Anyone wishing to dig deeper into this contretemps would do well to read what Sarah describes as his “most important book”, The Day Is Now Far Spent, published in English last autumn. In a “conversational” format, in which Sarah gives extended replies to questions from Nicolas Diat, issues of the decline of the West, the crisis of the Church and the salvation of humanity are explored with depth, precision, compassion and unsparing honesty.