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Signs from God in the Life of an African Child

  • ROBERT CARDINAL SARAH 

"I have read 'God or Nothing' with great spiritual profit, joy, and gratitude." — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI 


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"What surprises me", God says,
"is hope.  And I cannot get over it. 
This little hope that seems like
nothing at all.  This little girl hope,
Who is immortal."

— Charles Péguy, La Porche
du mystère
de
la deuxième vertu

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Nicolas Diat:  This first question in our interview concerns your birth in Ourous, in the heart of the highlands of Guinea.  It is not easy to understand how a child from the African countryside was able to become a cardinal. . . .

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  You are quite right!  It is difficult to grasp what I have become today, considering my modest beginnings.

When I think about the animistic milieu, so deeply attached to its customs, from which the Lord took me in order to make me into a Christian, a priest, a bishop, a cardinal, and one of the close collaborators of the pope, I am overcome with emotion.

I was born on June 15, 1945, in Ourous, one of the smallest villages in Guinea, in the north of the country, near the border of Senegal.  It is a mountainous region that is far from the capital of Conakry and often regarded as unimportant by the administrative and political authorities.

In fact, my home is about 310 miles distant from Conakry.  The trip to the capital takes an entire day along especially difficult roads.  During the rainy season, sometimes the cars get stuck.  The journey may be interrupted for long hours, the time it takes to get the vehicle out of the mud, only for it to get bogged down again a little farther on.  At the time when I was born, most of the roads were no more than simple dirt paths.

My years in Ourous were the most precious time of my life in Guinea.  I grew up in that isolated place, where I went to school to earn a primary school diploma.  We followed the same curriculum as little French children, and so I learned that my ancestors were Gauls. . . .

At the time, the Holy Ghost Fathers, members of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit — ­founded in the eighteenth century by Claude Poullart des Places and reformed in the nineteenth century by Father François Libermann — ­had already converted many animists to the Christian faith.  These missionaries had come to our region because Islam was not wide-spread there; they saw it as a possible field for evangelization.  In Conakry, for example, efforts to convert people were almost fruitless because the Muslims had long been the dominant group there.

Today, my village is almost entirely Christian and has close to 1,000 inhabitants.

At the beginning of the twentieth century — ­the mission was founded in 1912 — ­the chief of Ourous welcomed the Holy Ghost Fathers with true generosity.  He gave them more than 100 acres of land to promote the establishment of Catholic worship.  By farming this land, the missionaries obtained the resources necessary to cover the costs of running the mission and providing for the boarding-­school students.  Six months after the arrival of the Holy Ghost Fathers, one of them was brutally carried off by an untimely death.  Remember that hygiene at the time was very basic.  Cases of malaria, in particular, were still common.

In such a setting, these men of God made great sacrifices and suffered many deprivations, without ever complaining and with unending generosity.  The villagers helped them to build their huts. Then, little by little, they built a church together.  This place of worship was decorated by Father Fautrard, who had just been appointed to Ourous by Bishop Raymond Lerouge, the first vicar apostolic of Conakry.

My father watched the construction of the mission and the church.  He told me the story of how he had been chosen along with seven other young boys, animists like himself, to carry to the village the bell that had arrived by boat at Conakry.  By working in shifts for a week, they completed the arduous journey.

Later, my father, Alexandre, was baptized and married on the same day, April 13, 1947, that is, two years after my birth.

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Nicolas Diat:  What was life like for your people, the Coniaguis, that small ethnic group from the north of Guinea?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  The Coniaguis are a people made up almost exclusively of farmers and livestock breeders, who have managed to preserve their traditions.  Where do they come from?  According to some researchers, the Coniaguis are related to the Yolas of Casamance, whose language is said to be almost identical to theirs.  Now the Yolas, according to oral tradition, are the descendants of Guélowar Bamana.  In fact, the Yolas or Biagares, whose territory extends to Koli and borders on the land of the Bassaris, live on the bank of the Geba River, opposite Bissau.  According to storytellers' oral tradition, a young Coniagui girl, Guélowar Bamana, was at the origin of the Gabu or Kaabu dynasties, said to go back to the thirteenth century, and also of all the populations of the Sine region, that is, Senegal, Guinea-­Bissau, the Gambia, and the northwest of Guinea-­Conakry.  "In those days, the king's son married a young woman who appeared mysteriously in the bush: she was descended from the spirits and did not speak Mandingue.  They taught her to speak and eat in the manner of the Mandingues, that is, the Malinkés.  Out of their union four girls were born, who married the kings of Djimana, Pinda, Sama, and Sine, respectively.  Only male descendants can be emperors of Gabu, but through the matrilineal line."

My ancestors were basically animists, faithful to the rituals and secular festivals that still set the tempo of their existence.

During my childhood, we lived in round, one-­room brick huts covered by wattle and daub, surrounded by a "veranda" where we usually ate our meals.  We owned one or two other small huts nearby where we stored rice, fonio, peanuts, millet, and other crops.  We had fields and rice paddies; the earth's yield served to feed the village families, and the surplus was sold at the market.  It was a simple, humble, secure life without conflicts.  Community living and caring for the needs of others were of the utmost importance.

Villagers organized themselves into groups of fifteen to twenty people to help each other with their work in the fields.  During the growing and harvest seasons, each group set aside certain days to work the fields of each of its members in turn, according to a mutually agreed­on calendar.  When a work cycle was complete, each having welcomed the group in his field, we started over again, until the end of the growing season.

This solidarity allowed each member to receive effective aid from his group when it was his turn.  Occasionally a family would invite a few extra villagers to help them work in the fields.  The family would then offer some millet beer or mead and a midday meal to the friends who had joined them.

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Nicolas Diat:  Could you describe the ancient religious rituals of your ancestors, in particular the important rite of passage into adult life?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  The Coniagui people are very religious and devoted to God, who is called Ounou.  However, they can come into contact with him only through their ancestors.

The God of my ancestors is the Creator of the universe and of all that exists.  He is the Supreme Being, ineffable, incomprehensible, invisible, and intangible.  Yet he is at the center of our lives and permeates our entire existence.  It is common in Coniagui culture to encounter theophoric names such as Mpooun ("God's second"), Taoun ("God's third"), Ounouted ("God is the one who knows"), and Ounoubayerou ("are you God?").

Religious and ritual life is essentially divided into two spheres: funeral rites, on the one hand, and initiation rites, on the other.

The funeral rites consist of sacrificial offerings, consisting of libations of animal blood or of millet beer.  These offerings are poured out on the ground or at the foot of a sacred tree, on an altar or on a wooden stele representing the village ancestors.  The objective is to appease the spirits, to give thanks to God, and to ask supernatural forces for blessings.  In fact, there are three rites or types of offerings.  The rhavanhë performed at funerals is an indispensable moment, for it opens the door of the village of ancestors to those who passed away at a certain age; they do not celebrate the rhavanhë for those who have died at a very young age or as adolescents, probably because of their innocence, that is, their inability to do serious and deliberate evil — ­after their death, they are readmitted to the ancestors' village without there being need for a sacrifice.  Then there is the sadhëkha, celebrated as a thank offering for blessings received, for example, on the occasion of a birth, or to ask for a blessing on important actions.  Finally, the purpose of the tchëva is to obtain the end of natural disasters such as drought and invading clouds of devastating crickets that devour the crops and the leaves and fruits of trees.  It consists of a nocturnal procession through the fields and the village to ask for God's protection over the farms and the work done there.  This ritual resembles the rogation processions that were held in the Catholic Church until the Vatican II Council and that still exist in other countries, such as Mexico.  It is celebrated by women and presided over by the loukoutha, represented by a special ceremonial mask; the loukoutha is a spirit in human form, dressed in natural fibers or leaves so as not to be seen or recognized by the women and non-­initiated children.

Additionally, a young man's initiation ceremony is a critical moment in the life of the Coniagui people.  It is preceded by the circumcision ritual, designed as a test of physical endurance.  Even though circumcision is performed around the age of twelve without anesthetics, the boy must not cry, no matter how much pain he experiences.  This operation begins a two-­ to three-­year transition period to prepare the boy for his initiation; the goal is to bring about a radical transformation of the boy from childhood to adulthood.  The adolescent then becomes a man who is fully responsible for himself and for his community.

Folk dances start Saturday afternoon and last all night.  Then the adolescents are led into the forest, where they stay for a week to be trained in suffering and to learn endurance, self-denial for the sake of the common good, and scrupulous respect for the elderly, older men and women.  Initiation is an apprenticeship in the customs, traditions, and manners of the community.  The adolescents also learn how to treat certain diseases with medicinal plants.

Initiation might appear to be a good thing; in reality, however, this ritual is a ruse, a hoax that uses lies, violence, and fear.  The physical trials and humiliations are such that they do not lead to a real transformation or a free assimilation of the teachings, which ought to involve the intellect, the conscience, and the heart.  The process instills servile submission to traditions, for fear of being cast out for not conforming to the rules.  During the initiation rite, the keepers of the traditions lead the women to believe that the young adolescent dies and is reborn to a new life.  According to animist beliefs, the initiate is eaten by a spirit, the nh'ëmba, and then restored to the community with a new spirit.  The ceremony for the return to the village is especially solemn, because the young man appears for the first time before the community, physically pretending to be a different man endowed with new powers.

The initiation rite is an obsolete practice that is incapable of answering life's most important questions or of showing a Guinean man how to be integrated properly into a world full of challenges.

Indeed, a culture that does not promote the ability to make progress and to be open to other social realities, so as to welcome its own transformation serenely, becomes closed in on itself.  Yet an initiation rite makes us slaves to our milieu, walled up in fear and in the past.

The Spiritan missionaries enabled my people to understand that Jesus alone truly gives us the gift of being born again, born "of water and the Spirit", as Christ says to Nicodemus ( Jn 3:5).

Initiation has always been a secret rite that entails knowledge and customs reserved exclusively for the initiated.  An esoteric education in a secret circle of initiates cannot help but give rise to doubts about its value, its substance, and its real ability to transform a man.  The Church has always opposed this kind of gnosis.  What is worse, with regard to the initiation of girls, some practices must be prohibited.  Indeed, the ritual seriously violates the dignity of a woman: in a perverse way, the initiation rite ruins the most intimate aspect of her physical integrity.

For my part, I was brought into the forest by my uncle, Samuel MPouna Coline, who is still alive.

In fact, Father had agreed to let me be initiated, provided that the ceremony be brief.  As a seminarian, it was unthinkable that I should miss Mass for a whole week.  Father and I were already convinced that the Mass was the only moment that transforms man on this earth.  My own initiation therefore lasted merely three days. . . .

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Nicolas Diat:  How do you view your childhood in Ourous when you look back on it today?  What was your daily routine like at the time?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  My childhood was very happy, without a doubt.  I grew up in an atmosphere of peace and innocent naïveté in a small village with the mission of the Holy Ghost Fathers at its center.

I lived in a pious, serene, and peaceful family in which God was present and the Virgin Mary was venerated with devotion.

Like many villagers, my parents were farmers.  To this day I greatly respect a job well done, after seeing them work so hard and joyfully.  They rose early in the morning to go into the fields, and I left with them by six o'clock.  When I was around seven years old, I could no longer accompany them because after Mass I had to go to school.  I must say that we were not rich; the fruit of our labor allowed us to be fed and clothed and guaranteed us a subsistence wage.  My parents' unselfishness, their honesty, humility, generosity, and the nobility of their feelings, their faith, the intensity of their prayer life, and most of all their trust in God made a deep impression on me.  I never saw them come into conflict with anyone.

I also remember playing soccer, hide-­and-­seek, hoop, and, most of all, endless dances by the light of the moon.  How can I forget the hours my friends and I spent at our elders' sides, listening to the tales and legends of the Coniagui culture?  It was like a school for us children; these wonderful moments were a gift that helped us to assimilate our values and traditions.  Festive ceremonies full of bright colors occurred regularly.  I remember very clearly the big harvest festivals.  We would empty our storehouses without any worries about running out. . . .

Anyone could come into our hut, at any time of day or night.  Everyone was welcome to share a meal at our table.  Father's and Mother's greatest happiness, their greatest joy, was to see our guests happy, welcomed royally in our little home.  For them, there was a divine blessing and an immense joy in the simple act of welcoming others; our little three-­person family would thus become for a few days "as many as the stars of heaven" (Heb 11:12).

Love, generosity, and the joy of opening the doors of one's home to neighbors or to strangers always tend to enlarge our hearts; "our heart is wide", Saint Paul said to the Corinthians (2 Cor 6:11).  Selflessness was at the center of everything.  For example, I still remember that Father had a friend who came from afar each year to spend the Christmas and Easter holidays at our house.  He and his family stayed as long as they wished; Mother was always available, with a ready smile and a lot of tact.

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Nicolas Diat:  Please describe the years you spent at the French school in your village.

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  Starting at age seven, I went to primary school after morning Mass.  At the time, we could speak our native language at home and French in the classroom or on the playground.  If we broke this rule, we were punished with "the mark", a sort of small necklace made of unfinished wood that symbolized our mistake. . . . But in fact, children were proud to go to school, to learn the French language and culture.  Our ambition was actually to be open to everything that leads to knowledge and to the world of science.

Friendships between schoolmates were strong; you could even say that there was great unity among the youth.  We fought sometimes, but it was never serious.  Today I have lost many of those friends, who died rather young; others still live in the village or in various regions of Guinea.  I have many fond memories of this simple time, marked by the heroism of the missionaries, whose lives were totally imbued with God.

I was an only child, surrounded by affection without being overprotected.  My parents never punished me; I felt an inexhaustible tenderness and affectionate veneration for them.  Despite their return to the Father's house, I still feel the love that keeps us profoundly united.

I also remember my maternal grandmother, who was baptized at the end of her life, at the very moment of her death.  She was baptized with the name Rose, the patron saint of her parish.  My grandmother agreed to be baptized when the priest explained to her that she would thus be able to see us again in heaven.  At first, she did not understand the meaning of baptism; it was a great joy for me when she became a child of God, for I was sure that we would one day go to live together in heaven, side by side. 

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Nicolas Diat:  In Ourous, the Holy Ghost Fathers seem ultimately to be at the center of your life. . . .

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  Indeed, as I told you, I was born on June 15, 1945, and I received the Sacrament of Confirmation on June 15, 1958, in Bingerville, at the hands of Archbishop Boivin of Abidjan.  I was baptized at the age of two, on July 20, 1947, by a Holy Ghost Father, and I was ordained a priest on July 20, 1969, by another Spiritan, Bishop Raymond-­Marie Tchidimbo.

I owe my entrance into Christ's family entirely to the exceptional dedication of the Holy Ghost Fathers.  I will always admire these men, who had left France, their families, and their ties to bring the love of God to the ends of the earth.

The first three missionaries who founded Saint Rose mission in Ourous were Fathers Joseph Orcel, Antoine Reeb, and Firmin Montels.  They arrived around the time of the Easter celebrations in 1912 and presented themselves to the commander of the French Circle of You-kounkoun, who refused to receive them.  They continued their travels and arrived in Ithiou.  From there, they crossed the river and reached Ourous, where they were welcomed with open arms.

For three months, they camped in the forest.  They lacked everything, suffering from hunger and the hostility of the commander of the Circle located about a mile from Ourous.  Every morning after Mass, Father Orcel, with trowel and hammer in hand, built the temporary hut that would house them.  Six months later, Father Montels became seriously ill from physical exhaustion; he was called back to God on September 2, 1912, thus becoming the "foundation stone" of the mission.

Every evening, the Fathers of Ourous gathered the children near a large cross set up in the mission courtyard, as if to symbolize the heart and center of the village.  We could see it from far away: we oriented our entire lives by it! It was around this cross that we received our cultural and spiritual education.  There, as the sun slowly set, the missionaries introduced us to the Christian mysteries.

Under the protection by the great cross of Ourous, we were being prepared by God for the painful incidents of revolutionary persecution that the Church in my country would face throughout the rule of Sékou Touré.  His dictatorship drove the populace to exhaustion, lies, brutality, mediocrity, and spiritual poverty.

The Church in Guinea experienced a terrible Way of the Cross.  The entire young nation was transformed into a valley of tears.  Although we owe some thanks to Sékou Touré for his role in winning our independence, how can we forget his atrocious crimes, like the Boiro camp, where many prisoners died after being brutally tortured, humiliated, and eliminated in the name of a revolution orchestrated by a bloodthirsty ruler who was obsessed by the specter of conspiracy?

The physical experience of the cross is a grace that is absolutely necessary for our growth in the Christian faith and a providential opportunity to conform ourselves to Christ so as to enter into the depths of the ineffable.  We understand, therefore, that in piercing the Heart of Jesus, the soldier's spear revealed a great mystery, for it went farther than the Heart of Christ.  It revealed God; it passed, so to speak, through the very center of the Trinity.

I thank the missionaries who made me understand that the Cross is the center of the world, the heart of mankind, and the place where our stability is anchored.  In fact, there is only one steadfast point in this world to guarantee man's balance and steadiness.  Everything else is moving, changing, ephemeral, and uncertain: "Stat Crux, dum volvitur orbis" (Only the Cross stands, and the world revolves around it).  Calvary is the highest point in the world, from which we can see everything with new eyes, the eyes of faith, love, and martyrdom: the eyes of Christ.

In Ourous, we had been impressed by this presence of the cross, which was taken down at the time of Séjou Touré's revolution and replaced with the national flag.  It was finally restored to its place after the dictator's death.

When the cross was toppled, it caused indescribable suffering for the faithful Christians.  By that time, the clinic, the priests' house, and that of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Versailles, the schools, and the cemetery had already been confiscated and nationalized.

During my childhood, the Fathers taught us the catechism of Pius X, first in our own language, then in French during the last two years of preparation for the diploma.  They told us about the Bible and Church history.  We children asked a lot of questions, and the Holy Ghost Fathers talked about their assignments in other countries.  As night fell, we would sing evening prayer; then they blessed us, and we returned to our huts.  You might think I am describing an idyllic world, but this is what it was really like.

My parents never missed a Sunday service.  I was an altar boy, first only on Sundays, then Father Marcel Bracquemond asked me to come every day to serve the Mass at six o'clock.  He had noticed that I liked the Divine Office.  In order to help us perform our duties as altar servers, the Father Superior, Martin Martinière, had assigned one of the older boys, Barnabé Martin Tany, to teach us the initial prayers at the foot of the altar.  Then, after Mass, I would return home for breakfast, and then I went to school.

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Nicolas Diat:  What led to your priestly vocation and your decision to enter the seminary?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  If I look for the source of my priestly vocation, how can I help but see, like Saint John Paul II, that "it throbs in the Cenacle in Jerusalem"?  From the Upper Room, during Jesus' last supper with his disciples, "on the night when he was betrayed" (1 Cor 11:23), "the immense night of origins" and the night of this first celebration of the Eucharist, flows the lifeblood that feeds every vocation: the vocation of the apostles and their successors as well as that of every man.  My priestly vocation is found in the first Eucharist, as is every priest's.  So I was set apart, called to serve God and the Church, from my mother's womb.  In each of my nail celebrations of the Eucharist, I hear resounding in my heart the words that Jesus spoke to the apostles, on the memorable day of the washing of their feet, the institution of the priesthood and of the Eucharist, as if those words had been spoken to me also: "Do you know what I have done to you?  You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am.  If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.  For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you" ( Jn 13:12–15).  I am certain that on that night Jesus was thinking of me, too, and had already placed his hand on my head.

It was in the context of the daily Eucharist that Father Bracquemond, no doubt seeing my ardent desire to know God and probably impressed by my love of prayer and my faithful attendance at daily Mass, asked me if I wanted to enter the seminary.  With the astonishment and spontaneity characteristic of children, I replied that I would very much like to, without the slightest idea of what I was committing myself to, for I had never left my little village and did not know anything about life in a seminary.

He explained to me that it was a house upheld by the prayers and affection of the entire Church.  This place, he told me, would prepare me and other youths to become a priest like him.  With this simple explanation, my joy at the thought of becoming a priest someday swelled my heart with both wonder and "madness"!

The priest asked me to talk about it with my parents, Alexandre and Claire, whom he knew very well.

I went to see Mother first, to tell her that I might perhaps be able to enter the seminary.  She had no idea what the seminary was but was curious as to why I wanted to go there.  I explained to her that it was about entering a special school that would prepare me to become a priest so as to be consecrated to God, like the Holy Ghost Fathers. . . . With her eyes wide open, she then told me that I must have lost my mind to say such a thing, or else I must not have understood the priest's words.  To my mother and the inhabitants of the village, all priests were necessarily white. . . . In fact, it seemed impossible to her that a black man could become a priest! Hence it was clear that I had misunderstood Father Marcel Bracquemond's words.  So she advised me to talk to my father about it, convinced that I had just said something extremely foolish and unrealistic.

That same day, I went out to find Father in the field, and he had the same reaction. . . . I tried to tell him that it was indeed Father Bracquemond who had persuaded me that, yes, I could become a priest like him.  With a smile that was both tender and mocking, Father held me close to his heart, as if to console me for his skepticism.  He was certain that I was telling him about a dream I had had the previous night! My request seemed impossible to him, too: a black man cannot become a priest of the Catholic Church.  This nonsensical idea, he thought, could only be the product of my childish naïveté.  But I insisted that these were Father Bracquemond's very own words. . . . So they decided to go and ask him to verify the authenticity of this story.  He assured them that I had not lied and that he had in fact suggested to me the idea of becoming a priest and, first of all, entering the minor seminary to be trained! My parents were absolutely dumbfounded.  That evening, by the light of the moon, they suggested that I leave for a year, showing that they had no idea how many years of study might be required at a seminary.

I was eleven and had just earned my certificate of primary studies.  At the time, young seminarians from Guinea had to go to Ivory Coast for their formation.  I was enthusiastic, proud, and happy, without knowing anything about the life awaiting me at the Saint Augustine Seminary in Bingerville.

As I left my parents, I could sense that the flow of time was changing.  I noticed that my ties with Ourous were gradually breaking, while others would develop between the Lord and me, who possessed nothing but a young heart already enamored of him.  I was my parents' only child, and I understood that they were making a very difficult sacrifice.  With their own hands, they made a small suitcase for me, holding some under-wear and a few shirts, nothing more.  The priests helped me to plan the trip, and one of them accompanied me to Labé, a small town 150 miles from Ourous, to take a truck that would bring me to Conakry.  I had the opportunity to travel with another seminarian, Alphonse Sara Tylé, who had enrolled at Bingerville a short time before.  He was for me a valuable and reassuring companion at the start of this extraordinary adventure.

I had never left my village; I knew nobody at all besides the inhabitants of Ourous.  I felt lost in Conakry.  Yet along this path that was leading us to God, I was always supported by the joy of entering the seminary and by the encouragement of Alphonse, who was older.  I told myself that if he had left and then come back, it must be a rich experience.  We took a large boat, the Foucault, on a four­day journey that brought us to Abidjan after sailing past the Loos Islands and along the coasts of Sierra Leone and Liberia.  Obviously, I did not know how to swim.  I was therefore very surprised to see such a vehicle, heavily loaded with merchandise and passengers, "driving" on the water.  What a discovery! There were many travelers and a lot of luggage, and an exuberant mood prevailed.  I embarked with a dozen Guinean seminarians whose names I will never forget: Adrien Tambassa, Pascal Lys, Maximin Bangoura, Richard Bangoura, Camille Camara, Alphonse Sara Tyle, Joseph Mamidou, Yves Da Costa, and Jean-­Marie Touré.  I was the youngest. . . .

We traveled in the hold, where the heat was suffocating.  It was impossible to eat.  The smell from the engines and the kitchens made us nauseated; the little greasy food that we were able to eat soon became food for the fish! Nothing would stay down.  The only pleasant, special moments over the course of the four­-day journey were during the hour of Holy Mass, celebrated by the ship's chaplain in a chapel in the first-­class section.  In that atmosphere of luxury and well-­being, free from the ship's pitching and tossing, we wished that Mass would last for hours and hours.  Unfortunately, once Mass was over, we went for a walk along the bridge for a few minutes, then returned to the hold, which had become a veritable inferno.

We arrived in the port of Abidjan feeling very tired.  A car immediately brought us to the Saint Augustine Minor Seminary.  After that difficult journey, the real adventure was beginning.

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Nicolas Diat:  Wasn't your departure for the minor seminary somewhat abrupt, separating you from the world of your family?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, my first year went very badly.  Until Christmas, my studies went well.  Then I became ill.  Anemic and weak, I was treated without anyone really knowing what I was suffering from.  The superiors threatened to send me back to my family because I did not have a strong enough constitution.  At the time, seminarians were required to have the "3 H's": holiness, head knowledge, and health, in order to continue formation for the priesthood.  I must admit that I possessed not one of these 3 H's!

Fearing dismissal from the seminary because of my shortcomings, I asked the nun who was my nurse to tell the Father Superior that I was doing better, but that was only a pious, well-meaning lie.  I did not want to go back home and leave on a bad note.  In fact, the doctors were treating me blindly.  The Father Superior ended up asking specialists to perform several further tests.  It was then discovered that I was infested with hookworms that were eating away at me little by little.  The correct treatment freed me from those parasites, and I began to regain my strength.  In June, the Father Superior, after consulting with my professors, authorized me to return for a second academic year after the holidays, on the express condition that I catch up on my first year and do well in my second year.

Soon it was time for summer vacation, and we took the boat back to Guinea.  I was wary about admitting to my parents that I had been so ill because I was afraid they would tell me sternly, "Robert, it is out of the question that you return to Bingerville!" I dreaded hearing those terrible words.  Now back home, my mother saw that I was weak and had lost weight.  But I found a way to explain my physical state.  "The demands of sports and daily physical labor and the rigors of seminary life have made me so thin," I dared to say, and I went on brazenly, "but I am very happy there, and I have some very good friends among my classmates.  And then, Mother, I must get used to this beautiful new life little by little, even if it takes enormous effort!"

I was very lucky, because my parents never opposed my vocation.  However, some of their friends, worried about their old age, sought to persuade them that it was imprudent for them to let their only child become a priest.  They even went so far as to provoke them to anxiety with troubling questions: Have you thought about your old age?  Who then will take care of you when you are no longer able to work to meet your needs?  Furthermore, you will never have grandchildren. . . . Have you thought about this?

With God's help, sustained by daily prayer, Mother and Father never showed me their misgivings because they did not want to oppose my heart's desire.  My parents understood the depth of my joy and did nothing to frustrate God's plan for me.  As Christians, they reflected that if my path were really leading me to the seminary, the Lord would guide me to the end.

After summer vacation, I once again happily embarked for Bingerville for my second year of seminary.  It was September 27, 1958, on board the Mermoz.

At that time, Guinea was agitating to gain its independence.  Everywhere in the country people were shouting, "We prefer freedom in poverty to opulence in slavery."  My homeland, having chosen immediate independence, cut off all ties with France.  Many of my fellow countrymen thought that the first glimmers of the dawn of liberty were now on the horizon.  France, under General de Gaulle's leadership, nervous and unhappy about this decision by the Guinean government, was, therefore, preparing to leave with its weapons and baggage.  There was an atmosphere of joy and happiness, euphoria and troubling realism, all at once.

In the midst of this uncertainty, we once again took the boat for Abidjan and Bingerville.  The 1958–1959 school year went as usual; my grades were very good, though not excellent.  I had managed for the most part to fill in the gaps in my learning, and I was admitted to the third year to continue my formation as a future priest.

Then, once again, summer vacation in Guinea loomed on the horizon, as always preceded by four days of fasting and penance, because for most of us the journey by boat was a real ordeal.  Seasickness was our loyal traveling companion.  We hated it, but it was fond of us and would not let us go!

The 1959–1960 school year was the last year at Saint Augustine's in Bingerville for the Guinean seminarians.  Father Thépaut had been replaced by Father Messner as rector of the seminary.  Three African priests, Jacques Nomel, Louis Grandouillet, and Pierre-­Marie Coty, were then appointed professors at the seminary.  We were happy and proud to see these African models among our instructors! These young priests were the pride and consolation of the white missionaries, who thus tasted the fruits of their sacrifices.  The men whom they had educated were now participating in the formation of the African clergy.  I remember that in Bingerville there was an excellent atmosphere of work and ecclesial communion.  But we Guineans had to cut our school year short.  Boats departed for Conakry less frequently due to the revolutionary policies of Sékou Touré, who was becoming more radical and closing Guinea off from the world.  We had to leave Ivory Coast in early June aboard the Général Mangin from Libreville.

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Nicolas Diat:  What memories do you still have of these years in Ivory Coast?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  I only spent three years at Saint Augustine Minor Seminary, 1957 to 1960.  The academic program was rigorous and identical to the one in French middle and high schools, since the seminarians had to pass the same official exams as their student colleagues.  Our professors gave equal attention to our intellectual, cultural, and spiritual education.  Sports and daily manual labor were also an important part of the program.

However, daily Mass was the focus of our day.  It was carefully prepared for and celebrated with fervor and solemnity, especially on Sundays.  Special attention was paid to our liturgical education, so that we might understand the mysteries we were celebrating.  Training in silence, discipline, and communal life helped to mold the seminarians, preparing them to develop their own interior life and to become true stewards of the mysteries of God.  We learned to live together as a family, avoiding regionalism or tribalism.  We constantly had to change our companion during our daily walks or recreation, so as to get used to living in brotherly communion with everybody, without privileging or preferring anyone.  We thus were able to train to become the future priests of multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial Christian communities.  The priests wanted the Eucharist to make us blood brothers, one family, one people, one race, that of the children of God.  The present archbishop of Abidjan, Jean-­Pierre Cardinal Kutwa, was my classmate.

Guinea gained its independence in October 1958, and because of strained relations and the lack of cooperation between Sékou Touré and Félix Houphouët-­Boigny, we had to return to Guinea to a combined seminary and middle school run by the Holy Ghost Fathers.

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Nicolas Diat:  From that moment on, was your seminary formation affected by the troubles in Guinean politics?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  Yes indeed, we are all affected by the sociopolitical and historical context in which we live.  God shapes us in a given environment, through happy or unhappy events and through his chosen intermediaries.  He knows how to lead us through the trials and tribulations of history.

Given the political troubles, Archbishop Gérard de Milleville of Conakry decided to repatriate us from the seminary in Bingerville to the Saint Mary of Dixinn seminary and middle school.  The latter is located in a district in Conakry by the same name.  In order to facilitate our life as future priests and the discernment of our vocation, he housed us in the novitiate of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Cluny, near the middle school in Dixinn, so that we might receive our intellectual, emotional, and spiritual formation in a setting of partial solitude.  The Sisters of Cluny no longer had any novices; the building was therefore vacant, ready to welcome a little group of seminarians.  Since they were attending a school where young Christians, Muslims, and Africans who practiced traditional religions were present, it was important to teach the young seminarians the habit of frequent "encounters" with Jesus.  Thus, the Sisters' novitiate was transformed into a seminary, and Father Louis Barry was placed in charge as the rector.

As the one primarily responsible for the seminary, he was concerned about setting an example, so that our discipline, piety, and desire to become better acquainted with God would grow a little more each day.  He wanted to instill in us a love of righteousness and humility.  Like Saint Paul, he tacitly exhorted us through his example to devote ourselves to "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise", as it says in the Letter to the Philippians; for the Apostle of the Gentiles also said, "What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do" (Phil 4:8–9).

As I would later discover in my own experience as a priest, he wanted to make each of us, even at our young age, despite our frailties, not only an alter Christus, but, much more, ipse Christus, Christ himself.

We took courses with the other students, as the Guinean government required.  Unfortunately, after a year, the middle school was confiscated and nationalized by the State, as were all Church-­owned schools, charitable works, and property.  This measure by the revolutionary Guinean government immediately provoked energetic protests from Archbishop Gérard de Milleville.  He was therefore promptly expelled from the country for having defended the rights of the Church.  Subsequently, for several months, the seminarians were compelled to stay in their respective parishes, where the Fathers tried to give them a few courses.  Under pressure from the regime and given all sorts of difficulties connected with the persecutions, many seminarians abandoned their vocation in order to attend State schools.

Along with several other fellow students who wanted to consecrate their lives to the Lord, I persevered, for I really believed that my path was the priesthood.  After repeated negotiations, our new bishop, Archbishop Tchidimbo, managed to enroll us in the State school in Kindia so that we might return to a regular academic life.

The year was already well under way, and we had to pass our brevet (middle school examination).  How could we pass the exam after missing more than six months of classes?  For it was only in March 1962 that a dozen seminarians, the meager remnant of the group from Dixinn, were able to reach Kindia, ninety miles from Conakry.  We went to work converting the premises of a dilapidated former youth center into a livable home with study rooms, a game room, and refectory.  The Fathers' dedication allowed us rapidly to convert the two largest rooms into dormitories.  The seminary came back to life under the patronage of Saint Joseph and the leadership of Father Alphonse Gilbert.

His heart overflowing with affection for each of us, he succeeded in restoring guidance to our life as future priests.  His gentleness and his homilies drew us to Jesus and urged us to have a real, increasingly intimate relationship with God.  I was personally struck by the example, human qualities, and intense interior life of this missionary.  Whenever one of us had a fit of anger or bitterness or behaved in a manner unbefitting a Christian, Father Gilbert asked him to go pray before the Blessed Sacrament, so that he could examine his conscience face to face with Jesus and allow himself to be calmed by the Lord's gentle presence.

After waiting patiently for many months, Archbishop Tchidimbo also succeeded in obtaining authorization to reopen the seminary and to provide courses for seminarians in grades ten and eleven, that is, the year leading up to the baccalaureate.  Also, Father Gérard Vieira, who was firmly committed to the training of the future African clergy, came from Conakry every week to teach mathematics, as did Father Maurice de Chalendar to give courses in Latin and Greek.  Both of them stayed with us a full day.  They were also great models of priestly life and intellectual integrity.  At the archbishop's request, Father Lein, the pastor in Mamou, made himself available to teach philosophy to the oldest students and Latin to the youngest.  In 1963, reinforcements came from the Diocese of Luçon in France, in the form of Fathers Joseph Bregeon and Emmanuel Rabaud.  Thus we benefited from a great team of qualified and devoted priests, who assisted us not only in our academic work but especially in the task of discerning God's will.

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Nicolas Diat:  Once again we can see the importance of the Holy Ghost Fathers in your life.  How would you describe the spirituality that they passed on to you?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  I believe that what impressed me most profoundly, since I was very young, even before my years of catechism classes, was the regularity of their prayer life.  I will never forget the spiritual rigor of their daily routine.

The days of the Spiritans were ordered like those of monks.  Very early in the morning, they were in church to pray together and individually.  Then each one celebrated Mass at his altar, assisted by a server.  After breakfast, they saw to their work.  At noon, they met again in the church for midday prayer and the Angelus.  As soon as they finished their meal, they returned once again to the church for thanksgiving and a visit to the Blessed Sacrament.  After a rest period, I used to watch with curiosity as they prayed individually, at around four in the afternoon, while reading from a little book.  As you may guess, it was the recitation of the breviary. . . . At the end of the day, around 7 P.M., came evening prayer with everyone, and then dinner.  At 9 P.M., around the great cross, one of the Fathers would gladly come spend time with us, answering our questions and trying to introduce us to the Christian life, spiritual values, and sacred history.  We always finished our vigil with a song.  I still remember the one that usually ended our days, entitled "Before Going to Sleep beneath the Stars".  This song prepared us to get down on our knees humbly before God to receive his forgiveness and protection during the night.  The melody is still alive today in my heart.

Ourous was home to great and holy missionaries; they were completely consumed by the fire of God's love.  They had exceptional human, intellectual, and spiritual qualities, but all died very young.

As I already told you, Father Firmin Montels, the founder, breathed his last on September 2, 1912, only six months after founding the parish.  At the moment when he died, he was singing "O Salutaris Hostia, quae caeli pandis ostium.  Bella praemunt hostilia, da robur, fer auxilium" (O Saving Victim, opening wide the gate of heav'n to us below! Our foes press on from every side; Your aid supply, Your strength bestow).  This priest was a great artist and, according to many accounts, a saint.  His days were quite full, with four hours dedicated to teaching catechism each day.  He compelled himself to make the Way of the Cross every day and to spend several hours in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament each week.  Not to mention the daily work of learning the local language.

When I look back at the past and the early days of the mission, or at Guinea in general, when I consider one by one the exceptional gifts from Providence, I know that God truly guided and adopted us.  I remember how enthralled I was when I saw the Holy Ghost Fathers walking every afternoon while reading their breviaries. . . . I never tired of watching them, with a sense of awe.  This may seem naïve fifty years later, but I do not deny what God made known to me.

Every day, the Holy Ghost Fathers lived by the rhythm of the Divine Office, Mass, work, and the rosary, and they never shirked their duties as men of God.  As a small child, I told myself that if the Fathers went to church so regularly, it must be because they were certain to encounter someone there and to speak to him with complete confidence.  Obviously, my ambition was to be able to encounter Christ, too.  When I entered the seminary, I was able to accept the difficulties because of my certainty that one day I would encounter Jesus in prayer, just like the missionaries.

How many times I was profoundly gripped by the silence that reigned in the church during the Fathers' prayers! At first, settled in the back of the building, I watched these men and wondered what they were doing, kneeling or sitting in the half-light, not saying anything. . . . But they seemed to be listening and conversing with someone in the semi-­ darkness of the church, lit by candles.  I was truly fascinated by their practice of prayer and the peaceful atmosphere it engendered.  I think that it is fair to say that there is a true heroism, greatness, and nobility in this life of regular prayer.  Man is great only when he is on his knees before God.

Of course they were not perfect.  These men had their moods, their human limitations, but I want to pay tribute to these religious men for their generous gift of their lives, their asceticism, and their humility.  In all the seminaries run by the missionaries, like the one in Sebikhotane for example, I found this desire to seek Christ deeply in this daily intimate conversation.  The way they established contact with the local people was a model of tact and practical thinking.  Without this intimacy with heaven, their missionary work could not have been fruitful.

The sufferings they endured were not in vain.  My parish, the most remote in the country, was the one that produced the greatest number of vocations in Guinea! This confirms the prophetic words that Father Orcel wrote to his bishop on August 15, 1925, thirteen years after the founding of Saint Rose mission: "I would not be at all surprised to see vocations take shape among our children.  As for me, I think that vocations are the reward for serious training in the family and in the mission."

The Holy Ghost Fathers had a profound impact on Guinean Catholicism.  How could we forget the way these priests took care of everyone, even the most wretched lepers?  They touched them and treated them, even though the patients gave off an unbearable smell.  They taught them the catechism, considering that the sick, too, had the right to be instructed in the mysteries of the faith and to receive Christ's sacraments.

Despite the political sufferings that accompanied Sékou Touré's Marxist dictatorship, the Church in Guinea stood fast, for she was founded on the rock, on the sacrifices of missionaries, and on the joy of the Gospel.  Communist doctrine never got the better of the priests who traveled on foot to the smallest villages, accompanied by a few catechists, carrying their suitcase-­chapel on their heads! The humility of the Spiritans' faith was the strongest defense against the egalitarian aberrations of the revolutionary Marxist ideology of the State Party in Guinea.  A handful of zealous and courageous Guinean priests kept the flame of the Gospel burning.

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Nicolas Diat:  Have you stayed in touch with the Holy Ghost Fathers from this period?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  Certainly, the most influential priest used by God to reveal to me my vocation was Father Marcel Bracquemond.  He still lives in France.  In 2012, I invited him to join us for the centennial celebrations of the parish in Ourous, and, in August 2014, I visited him in his retirement home in Brittany.

He was unable to accept my invitation to attend the centennial in Ourous because of his age and the long roads, which are still very difficult to travel.  But I did receive the following letter from him: "I received, via my religious superiors, your charming invitation to the celebration of the centennial of Saint Rose parish in Ouros, of which I have fond memories of having seen your courage as a server fetching the cruets, while menaced by a snake on top of the credence table.  This courage is perhaps what brought you to the attention of the Holy Father Benedict XVI.  The expulsion in May 1967 separated us. . . . I had other assignments.  Now, at the age of eighty-­six, still blessed with enough good health to help in the parish ministry in Brittany, a thoroughly delightful region, I apologize for turning down your invitation, because of the hundreds of miles of roads separating Ourous from Conakry and on account of the attitude of some now-­influential Christians during the unhappy circumstances that preceded the expulsion. . . . Nonetheless, I wish to tell your uncle Samuel Coline, whose marriage to Marie Panaré I blessed, that I remember her often in my prayers, and I ask that a dwelling place may be granted to her in Christ's kingdom.  Cardinal Sarah, I assure you of my prayers: may you continue for a long time to be as courageous as when I knew you, and may God's will be done to the extent of the authority that the Church bestows on you."

How could I forget this young priest who was the first to speak to me about the seminary and my vocation?  How could I forget that he helped my parents plan the long journey toward my new life, a journey that has never stopped since then. . . .

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Nicolas Diat:  All these years, your parents seem to have assisted you fervently. . . .

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  Yes, my parents always supported my vocation and then my priestly ministry with their humble, powerful prayers.  Even though they are now deceased, Father and Mother continue to watch over me from heaven.  They are truly the most profound sign of God's presence in my life.

To demonstrate his kindness and unfailing support, God willed that their deaths should fall on a day before or after an anniversary relating to my priesthood.  This providential coincidence convinced me that they would constantly be at my side, from heaven, still surrounding me with their prayers as they had done on earth.  I was consecrated bishop of Conakry on December 8, 1979, and Father died on December 7, 1991, at the very moment when I was celebrating the Eucharist for the twelfth anniversary of my episcopate.  I was ordained to the priesthood on July 20, 1969, and Mother died on July 21, 2007, the day after my thirty-­eighth anniversary of priestly ordination.

Yes, I was quite shaken by her death.  I have never been in so much pain in all my life.  I suddenly felt totally alone.  I was in Abruzzo for a spiritual retreat when Mother passed away in Conakry.  The morning of her death, she had tried to reach me by phone, but I was outside of Rome.  Late that afternoon, in the arms of a nun, Sister Marie-­Renée, she went peacefully to the Father's house.

A few hours after her death, Archbishop Vincent Coulibaly of Conakry told me the news.  That evening, on July 21, 2007, I felt as though I had been cut off from the roots of my whole life.  My sadness seemed unbearable.  Once I returned to Rome, I was able to leave for Conakry soon after, on Monday, July 23.  The whole populace, both Christians and Muslims, welcomed me with such brotherly compassion that I had the impression that God was flooding me with consolation.  I will never forget the friendly support offered by the entire population of my country.  Their affection and expressions of sympathy were profoundly fraternal, as if my people were replacing the brothers and sisters I never had.  The kindness shown by all of Guinea touched me to the very core.

I returned to Rome at peace, for I felt that my parents would continue to be at the center of my life.  They had always lived as faithful Christians, docile to the will of God.

At the time of my departure for Rome in 2001, Mother had behaved quite admirably.  I was very afraid to leave her alone, as she was beginning to grow old.  Therefore, I entrusted to a nun and friend the painful task of telling her about my new appointment in Rome, as secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.  I was so sad that I did not have the strength necessary to tell her myself.  Upon hearing the news of my future position in the service of the universal Church, Mother responded with lucid faith: "I thank God who gave me one child, and the Lord always takes him far from me to do his work.  I thank the pope, for there are many bishops in the world, and he thought of my son to be beside him.  But will Robert be up to the task that the Supreme Pontiff will assign to him?  Will he be able to perform correctly the duties that the pope wishes to entrust to him?  And who will succeed him as archbishop of Conakry?  I pray that God will find a good successor for him."  Mother's act of faith overwhelmed me, giving me wings at the moment when I was about to fly far away from her for God's glory.  While I was resisting so as to stay in Guinea, Mother was encouraging me to obey.

One week after I left Conakry, she had a fall and broke her hip. . . . She had to go to the emergency room.  When I learned the news by telephone, I was distraught; despite the painful fracture, she still tried to reassure me.  In fact, my parents created an atmosphere of peace, serene tranquility, and religious respect around my vocation, so as to allow me to walk with God, listening only to his voice whispering to me at every moment, as it did to Abraham, "Walk before me, and be blameless" (Gen 17:1).

Father and Mother were a great blessing and a precious treasure to me; God blessed them abundantly, granting them the immense joy of participating in the ceremonies of my priestly ordination and then my episcopal consecration.  My only disappointment was that Father did not live to see with us the extraordinary pastoral visit of John Paul II to Guinea.  He died two months before the pope's arrival in February 1992.  On the other hand, Mother had the honor of seeing him and greeting him.40

For all these divine gifts I give thanks to God.  I deserved nothing, but God often chooses the lowly.  He deigned to look upon a little boy from a poor village.  I never would have imagined that God could accomplish all that he has done for me.  But who could ever know where God is leading us?  Look at Saint Paul: in his rage against the Christians, did he know where he was going while on the road to Damascus?  And Saint Augustine, a fiercely ambitious young man eager for honors and pleasures, who was torn between his desires and his aspirations, between his flesh and his spirit, did he understand what he was seeking when he left Africa for Milan?  We are all the objects of this extraordinary manifestation of God's mercy.  His goodwill toward us is boundless!

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Nicolas Diat:  Baccalaureate in hand, did you leave very quickly for France?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  Indeed, Archbishop Tchidimbo had decided that I must continue discerning my vocation in France.  In September 1964, I left Conakry after earning my baccalaureate to begin my studies in philosophy and theology at the seminary in Nancy.  Bishop Pirolet of Lorraine agreed to accept seminarians from other countries: there were three of us Guineans, but there was also a boy from Laos, Antoine Biengta, and another from Korea, Joseph Ho.

There were around one hundred of us seminarians, and there was a very friendly atmosphere.  Even though I had been introduced to French culture to a great extent, I still had to make another physical and cultural adjustment. . . . There was a big difference between France and Africa.  It was very cold, and for the first time, wide­-eyed with amazement, I saw snow fall.

I noticed that relationships were different, lacking the warmth of my country.  Yet those years of studying Scholastic philosophy were a wonderful experience, in an enriching intercultural atmosphere.  The professors worked diligently for our formation.

When I arrived in Nancy, the first signs of the May 1968 protests were looming on the horizon. . . . The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum concilium, had been published the previous year, on December 4, 1963.  This document was already thought to hold the keys to a modern adaptation of the liturgy.  The tradition of wearing clerical garb was no longer necessarily observed — ­the Roman collar was replaced by a turtleneck sweater — ­and eventually priestly identity itself began to lose its visibility and disappear into anonymity; the cassock was slowly transformed into a liturgical vestment that was taken off as soon as ceremonies were over.  Yet I did not always realize the seriousness of these first signs of upheaval, because there was a fine generosity in our relations, a deep desire to pray.  For us foreigners, the welcome was truly touching.  We felt completely integrated into God's family.

During the holidays we stayed as guests on farms or at the homes of our classmates' families — ­to work there, to earn a bit of money, and to cover our personal expenses for the school year, as Archbishop Tchidimbo wished.

During all those years, I never encountered any racism.  Once, in Compiègne, where I was staying with the parents of a classmate, Gilles Silvy-­Leligois, someone in the street called me a dirty Negro.  My friend was furious and wanted his father to intervene.  I had to calm his anger, pleading with him to ignore this irrational, unjust act of aggression.  And to set him at ease, I added, "I am unquestionably a Negro; however, I am not dirty!" I realized that it must have been a Frenchman who had had to leave Africa with a lot of bitterness and some personal injuries.  To tell the truth, it was my one and only personal experience of a racist attack in France.

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Nicolas Diat:  During those years in France, were there events that had a particular impact on you?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  I will never forget my spiritual director, Father Louis Denis, a holy priest and a very gentle man.  His heart and mind overflowed with wisdom! He was an invaluable help to me on my path to the priesthood, while I was separated from my parents, without any news.  I remember, too, that in Nancy I saw a cardinal for the first time in my life. . . . It was a great servant of the Holy See, Eugène Cardinal Tisserant, who maintained strong ties with his roots in Lorraine.  He always stayed at our seminary when he was passing through Nancy.  The cardinal greatly impressed me with the breadth of his knowledge; and yet he was not aloof.  On the contrary, his homilies were exemplary.  We were neither frightened nor overwhelmed by his stature, because he knew how to remain simple and accessible.

My greatest joy during that period was meeting the family of André and Françoise Mallard, with their three girls, Claire, Agnès, and Béatrice, who considered me their older brother.  Their kindness to me was such that, wherever my studies led me — ­from Nancy to Jerusalem, via Sébik-hotane in Senegal and Rome — ­my adoptive parents came to visit me to demonstrate their closeness and affection.  They were of course present in Conakry for my episcopal consecration.

I was in effect adopted by them and spoiled like one of their own.  The void caused by the separation from my parents was filled by their tact, their support, and the warmth of their love.  They were truly a second family to me; the bond remains to this day and grows stronger year by year.

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Nicolas Diat:  How did you stay in touch with your parents, who were still living in Ourous?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  You have to understand that I did not go back home for the holidays, including the summer vacations.  Guinea was in the midst of a revolution, and the trip was very expensive.  After our country declared its independence, the Holy Ghost Fathers were practically forbidden to conduct social, educational, medical, or any other activities.  They were all expelled from Guinea in May 1967.

The separation from my family became even more unfortunate.  I could not write to them, for fear of jeopardizing my parents, who would have been suspected of having foreign ties.  They could have been accused, then arrested, and perhaps put into prison for collaborating with foreign enemies, who, according to the government, were regularly plotting to overthrow the revolutionary government in Guinea. . . .

The only opportunities to hear news were Archbishop Tchidimbo's visits to Nancy.  He passed on information about the development of the situation in Guinea.  Our bishop brought us letters from our loved ones; we could also give him private messages.  But during those three years of seminary in Nancy, he could never give me a single letter from my parents, since they lived over three hundred miles away from the capital of Guinea! The time went by slowly without any communication with my family.

During the vacations, we worked on farms or in workshops to earn a bit of money, which allowed us to cover our personal costs.  So it was that I worked on a farm not far from Nancy but also in Longwy.  Archbishop Tchidimbo was uncompromising in his management of the money that we earned; he did not want us to keep even one cent of our wages.

One day, the eldest of us three Guineans failed to obey the bishop's instructions and kept his money to buy a motorcycle! When Archbishop Tchidimbo learned that our classmate had used his summer savings for that purchase, he flew into a rage that was difficult to calm.  What was worse, the bishop became angry with the whole group, including those who had followed his instructions, like myself. . . . Today I laugh about it, but at the time, I was completely depressed.  We had no news from our parents, and, instead of encouraging us, our pastor had just stridently lectured us, without distinguishing the guilty from the innocent.

I then went through a period of doubts.  In my profound confusion, I vaguely considered the possibility of leaving the seminary.  I went to see my spiritual director, Father Denis, to tell him about my disappointment.  He declared to me, "Listen, Robert.  I have known four bishops in Nancy, and each had his faults, which can be difficult, and his virtues, which are very edifying.  You will not be a priest for the bishop's sake but for Christ and for the Church.  You must continue serenely, with complete confidence, with and for Christ, with your bishop or in spite of him.  Certainly, he is the one who will call you to the priesthood, but you will be a priest for the Church.  Today, you must get along with Archbishop Tchidimbo, and in the future you will have to learn to cope with his successor's personality."  The only surprise was that Archbishop Tchidimbo's successor, by a mysterious decree of God, turned out to be me. . . .

In any case, I stayed on at the seminary with joy and enthusiasm.  It is true, Archbishop Tchidimbo was very strict, intensely upright, and endlessly demanding.  He used to come visit us at the minor seminary in Kindia.  I remember that he insisted on the importance of spiritual qualities, and especially good character, moral integrity, and honesty.  I can still hear him thunder to the class: "The first reason to expel a seminarian is for duplicity, the second, for duplicity, and the third, for duplicity."  His stern language was somewhat frightening, but he wanted any man called to the priesthood to be upright and to have integrity.  Saint Gregory the Great wrote in a homily, "Woe to the sinner who walks the earth by a double path."  The sinner walks along two paths when his conduct contradicts his words, for then, inevitably, what he is looking for belongs to the world and to its vices.

Archbishop Tchidimbo believed that honesty was an indispensable trait that a bishop could never compromise.  He had been formed in Chevilly-­Larue by the Holy Ghost Fathers, and he belonged to Father Libermann's "valiant society".  Despite his severity, he meant a lot to me; he had a generous heart and was capable of being kind and very thoughtful.

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Nicolas Diat:  Why did you leave Nancy before the end of your theology studies?

Robert Cardinal Sarah:  Indeed, I ought to have finished my theology studies in Nancy.  Moreover, I remember that at the end of my studies in philosophy, I seriously considered earning a bachelor's degree in that subject, which I liked very much.  However, Archbishop Tchidimbo asked me not to pursue that plan.

Obedience helped me to mature.  It redirected my attention and my heart's desire toward the Sacred Scriptures.  Furthermore, my desire to be a priest became more attuned with my new aspiration to study the Word of God.  Thanks to a Protestant German friend, Horst Bültzing-slöwen, I gradually discovered the study of the Bible.  At the time, Horst was studying biblical exegesis at the University of Tübingen, and we often spent our vacation together with the Mallards, who owned a second home on the coast, near Arromanches-­les-­Bains.  Little by little, I was inoculated with the virus of biblical studies, which grew increasingly contagious until the end of my theological studies!

However, relations between Guinea and France, especially the relationship between Sékou Touré and General de Gaulle, were becoming so complicated that I had to leave Nancy.  Once again, my country's political troubles obliged me to change my place of study abruptly; so I left for Senegal and went to the seminary in Sébikhotane, not far from Dakar, for my last two years as a seminarian, from October 1967 to June 1969.  Even there, one could sense the wind of the revolutionary movement of May 1968.

During my stay in Sébikhotane I was ordained a sub-­deacon.  The ceremony took place in January 1969 in the cathedral in Dakar and was presided over by Hyacinthe Cardinal Thiandoum.  Diaconal ordination was then conferred upon me by Bishop Augustin Sagna in April 1969 in Brin, Senegal, in the Diocese of Ziguinchor.  There were a dozen of us deacons, happy and resolved to love God.  Most of the young deacons came from the dioceses of Dakar, Thiès, and Ziguinchor.  There were two of us from Guinea, Father Augustin Tounkara and I.  The mood at Sébikhotane was very warm and studious, in an African environment that benefited from the spiritual proximity and liturgical quality of the Benedictine abbey of Keur Moussa, which was part of the Solesmes Congregation.

In fact, the year of my diaconate was full of emotion and inner fear and trembling.  I could already see the hour of my priestly ordination coming and the special moment of my First Mass.  How could I not tremble at the thought of being a priest, being like Christ, pronouncing the same words as he?  During this same period, Archbishop Tchidimbo informed me that immediately after my ordination he would send me to Rome to study the Sacred Scriptures.

You can imagine my joy and happiness upon hearing this news.  Never would I have dreamed that one day I would be in Rome, near the tomb of Peter, and that I would see the pope with my own eyes! The little boy in Ourous who watched the priests gather in the village church seemed so far away . . .  and yet nothing about me had really changed.

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Acknowledgement

sarahRobert Cardinal Sarah. "Signs from God in the Life of an African Child." chapter one from God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2015): 17-45.

Reprinted with permission of Ignatius Press.

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