Francis’ Biographer Slams Cardinal Sarah for ‘Incendiary Language’ Against Pope

If you look up "popesplainer" in the dictionary, there's a picture of Ivereigh, a friend of Jimmy Boy Martin, SJLGBTQ∞, next to it.

From LifeSiteNews

By Patrick Delaney

Cardinal Robert Sarah spoke out against restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass, prompting Pope Francis biographer Austen Ivereigh to accuse him of attacking the papacy.

Pope Francis biographer Austen Ivereigh accused Cardinal Robert Sarah of using “incendiary, belligerent language” directed at the papacy after the retired Guinean cardinal warned that the Church “cannot declare war” on Catholics with a devotion to the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM).

In a September 1 post quoting a Catholic News Agency report of Sarah’s remarks, Ivereigh wrote, “What ‘war’? This incendiary, belligerent language of Sarah directed at the papacy is unbecoming of a cardinal. He may be over 80, deprived of all posts and responsibilities, and desperate for attention. But the vow he took still stands.”

Sarah, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, made the comments in a late August interview with the Italian newspaper Il Giornale. “We, as a Church, cannot declare war on those who devoutly attend Mass simply because they prefer one form over another; this is a shortsighted and entirely ideological stance and, therefore, neither pastoral nor Christian,” he affirmed. “It is harmful and destructive to the Church.”

The cardinal was responding to restrictions imposed by Pope Francis’ 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes that sharply limited celebration of the Vetus Ordo that Benedict XVI had liberalized in 2007 under Summorum Pontificum.

Sarah said Benedict’s decision produced a “positive influence — I would even say the correction — regarding possible abuses in the celebration of the ordinary form.” Many priests, he added, “testify that discovering the extraordinary form helped them celebrate Mass better.”

Traditionis Custodes “nullified” that approach “while the pope emeritus was still alive,” Sarah said. “That did not seem to me a decision that was either sensible or respectful.”

He described Benedict as “a man as gentle as a lamb” who “allowed himself to be humiliated and thus offered his suffering to God in silence and prayer.”

Sarah argued that ancient rites cannot simply be curtailed by decree. “Access to ritual forms that have been recognized and in existence for centuries must never be artificially restricted,” he said. “If a rite did not serve the faith, it would disappear on its own; if, conversely, it preserves and fosters the faith, we must by no means restrict it.”

In an earlier August interview with Il Foglio, Sarah went further, calling liturgical conflict itself sinful. “It is a drama, indeed a true and proper sin, that on an essential theme such as the liturgy there should be a kind of war,” he said. “The liturgy is the source of the Church’s communion, and it is unthinkable that on liturgical themes there should be such opposition and such fierce confrontations.”

He urged a return to Benedict XVI’s “balanced, pastoral and theologically well-founded position” that allowed both forms of the Roman Rite to coexist and enrich each other.

Ivereigh commits sins of rash judgment, calumny?

Ivereigh, author of The Great Reformer and Wounded Shepherd, has long been one of the late Pope Francis’ most prominent English-language defenders. Critics have accused him of dismissing traditional Catholics rather than engaging their arguments.

In a 2018 Crux essay, he suggested that some convert journalists who questioned papal actions suffered from “convert neurosis.” Named writers included Ross Douthat, R.R. Reno, and LifeSite’s John-Henry Westen. Carl E. Olson replied that inventing such a diagnosis was “typical lefty laziness” that isolated critics instead of answering them.

Replies to Ivereigh’s latest post echoed that pattern. One user quoted his phrase back at him: “‘Incendiary, belligerent language,’ eh?” while presenting a screenshot of the author posting an article titled “Why I hate the old Latin Mass: A confession.”

Another indicated a projection on behalf of Ivereigh, suggesting Sarah’s warning applied to Ivereigh himself: “It is time for you to look in the mirror.”

A third suggested Ivereigh committed the sins of rash judgment and calumny for misconstruing the motivation of Sarah and his words as an attack on the pope when they were, by all accounts, a defense of traditional Catholics. “Your character assassination of this holy cardinal is shameful,” the commenter wrote. “I found his statement balanced + fair.”

Following the restrictions imposed by Traditionis Custodes, ostensibly to protect ecclesial unity, Sarah and other orthodox prelates have held that suppressing the TLM which has been fruitfully the heart of the Catholic Faith for many centuries, is neither pastoral nor within the Church’s proper authority.

“I don’t know what authority we have to prevent a liturgy that has been celebrated for centuries,” Sarah said on a previous occasion. “Pope Benedict said that what was sacred in the past remains sacred today.”