Cardinal Sarah speaks out against clergy blessing same-sex unions

He also expressed concern that the confusion brought about by Fiducia Supplicans could “reappear” subtly in the Synod on Synodality in October 2024. 

Sarah reflected that the Church should respond to same-sex couples with the mercy of truth. 

“What to say to people involved in same-sex unions? Like Jesus, we dare the first of mercies: the objective truth of acts,” he wrote.

Sarah argued that blessing a same-sex couple is not the proper response. 

“The only thing to ask of people who are in a relationship against nature is to convert and conform to the word of God,” he wrote.

Sarah, who was born and raised in Guinea, recalled Pope Benedict XVI’s instruction to Africa to be the spiritual “lung” of humanity in contrast to the nihilism, materialism, and relativism affecting the West.

“The Church of Africa is the voice of the poor, the simple, and the small,” Sarah wrote, noting that it has to proclaim the Gospel to Western Christians who “believe themselves to be evolved, modern and wise of the wisdom of the world.”

“It is therefore not surprising that the bishops of Africa, in their poverty, are today the heralds of this divine truth in the face of the power and wealth of some episcopates of the West,” he added.