New man headed up worship post, 2014

Strictly speaking he’s the new Prefect of Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, and if you really want to be correct and solidify your credentials in the matter, of this dicastery (!).

Where the die is cast? At least where decisions are made about how mass is said, presumably binding on all ecclesiastical underlings, including cardinals, priests, bishops, and deacons.

Posted on 24 November 2014 by the inimitable Fr. John Zuhlsdorf:

Pope Francis has appointed Robert Card. Sarah, 69, as the new Prefect . . . Hitherto, Card. Sarah, from Guinea, has been the head of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum.”

At Cor Unum, which oversees Caritas International, Sarah had got iffy about supplying poor people with condoms and the like, the better to not clutter the already crowded earth with their babies, Cor Unum being a disaster-relief organization (another dicastery, by the way) established by Paul VI in 1971. (It was merged by Francis in 2016 with the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, which focuses largely on migrants.

Sarah’s offense at Cor Unum was to insist on evangelization, not merely social services, as its mission, as he said, citing Benedict XIV,

“Charity is very linked with the proclamation of the Gospel, and doing charity is not only giving food, giving material things, but giving God too. Because the main lack of man is not having God.”

The cardinal was not to last at his Worship posting, however, about which more later . . .