Cardinal Robert Sarah has said the Devil is “intent on destroying the family”, and that Christians must fight ideologies which deny the importance of children having a mother and father. Speaking at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC, Cardinal Sarah, head of the Vatican’s liturgy commission, said the world was “increasingly cut off from God through ideological colonialism”. The Guinean cardinal quoted Pope St John Paul II as saying the family is where the Gospel is first preached. The cardinal also hailed the “generous and responsible love of spouses, made visible through the self-giving of parents”. But he said the Devil wanted to destroy the family to make it harder for people to hear “the Good News of Jesus Christ: self-giving, fruitful love”. He said divorce, cohabitation and gay marriage “cause damage to little children through inflicting upon them a deep existential doubt about love”, adding: “They are a scandal – a stumbling block – that prevents the most vulnerable from believing in such love, and a crushing burden that can prevent them from opening to the healing power of the Gospel.” Cardinal Sarah said that legalising these situations – as, he said, the US has done – could not resolve social problems. It was necessary to “fight to protect the family”, he said. He said that Pope Francis “openly and vigorously defends Church teaching on contraception, abortion, homosexuality, reproductive technologies, the education of children and much more”. The cardinal said that restrictions to religious freedom were equivalent to violent persecution and advised the audience: “Be prophetic. Be faithful. Pray.”