Cardinal Robert Sarah has warned that one of the greatest threats to the Church today does not come solely from external secularization, but from a growing adaptation to the dominant mentality within the ecclesial community itself. In an extensive interview given to the French magazine La Nef, the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship denounces the emergence of a “new paganism” that is weakening the Christian faith from within.
Far from referring to a return of ancient religions or idolatrous cults, Sarah describes a much deeper phenomenon: the progressive substitution of God by man as the measure of all things, even in areas where faith remains externally present.
“The great heresy of our time”
The African cardinal is especially concerned about what he considers an excessive influence of contemporary culture on numerous sectors of the Church.
“Permeability to the spirit of the world is the great heresy of our time.”
According to Sarah, the current temptation consists in adapting the Christian message to the dominant ideological categories, softening or relegating fundamental aspects of the faith to avoid conflict with contemporary society.
In his view, this attitude ultimately empties Christianity of its transformative power.
“The world is trying to chain the Church once again.”
Sarah warns that this pressure is no longer necessarily exerted through open persecutions or direct political pressures, but by imposing on the Church a culture whose dogmas are defined by the world itself.
For the cardinal, when the Church adopts the criteria of a secularized society as the main reference for its pastoral action, it risks losing its identity and its evangelizing mission.
“One can live among holy things and lose the sense of God”
Sarah warns that this new paganism does not always manifest itself through an explicit rejection of the faith.
On the contrary, it can develop even in apparently religious environments.
“One can live among holy things and lose the sense of God.”
With this expression, the cardinal describes a situation in which ecclesial structures, celebrations, and pastoral activities remain, but the awareness of the divine presence is progressively weakened.
The cardinal considers that one of the most evident symptoms of this crisis is the loss of the sense of adoration.
When the liturgy ceases to be centered on God and becomes primarily a human or communal experience, he affirms, something essential is broken in Christian life.
The crisis is not political, but spiritual
Throughout the interview, Sarah insists on an idea he has repeated on numerous occasions in recent years: the main crisis of the West is not economic, political, or social, but spiritual.
True renewal, he maintains, comes through recovering the centrality of prayer, silence, eucharistic adoration, frequent confession, and a life genuinely oriented toward God, not through purely organizational or structural solutions to address the Church’s current challenges.
In this sense, he considers that the response to the advance of secularism does not consist in resembling the world more, but precisely in offering what the world cannot give.
Youth, conversions, and signs of hope
Despite the severe tone of some of his warnings, the cardinal observes with hope the growing interest of many young people in a more demanding and profound faith, as well as the increase in adult baptisms recorded in various European countries.
He also highlights the renewed interest in eucharistic adoration, sacramental life, and the more traditional forms of Catholic spirituality.
“I do not see a return of Christendom, but I do see an awakening of the thirst for God.”
For Sarah, the real challenge is not simply to combat paganism outside the Church, but to prevent Christians themselves from ending up living, thinking, and acting as if God no longer occupied the center of their lives.