Some good news from the Vatican! We have an African in charge of a major dicastery once more. He is Robert, Cardinal Sarah, who comes from Guinea, and who takes over the Congregation for Divine Worship. This newspaper reports it here and La Stampa has a longer article in English here. The Congregation for Divine Worship, which deals with the administration of the sacraments and regulates the liturgy has been headed up by an African before now. Cardinal Arinze, a Nigerian, often spoken of as papabile, ran the Congregation from 2002-2008. I once met Cardinal Arinze, who was a down to earth and friendly man, and who, when occasion demanded it could speak clearly and directly to the Church’s critics as well as to those inside the Church who wished to abuse its liturgy. All the indications are that Cardinal Sarah will be in the same mould as Cardinal Arinze; like his African predecessor, he has long experience of the Roman Curia. He will also bring his own African insights to the matter of the sacred liturgy. The Church in Africa has a clear and sharp understanding of the division between immanent and transcendent, sacred and profane. Having been to many liturgies in Africa, I have never had the experience I have had in some European countries of attending a Mass that seemed more like a school assembly. This sense of the transcendent and sacred, which permeates the whole of life in Africa, is also seen in an attention to ceremonial that never seems out of place. Recently the Cardinal received the “Summorum Pontificum” pilgrims to Rome, which is most encouraging. Here is an extract of a sermon made by the Cardinal at an ordination in Candes, France, back in 2011, in the original French: