WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship, named U.S. President Joe Biden as a prominent example of the “cafeteria Catholic” who adopts the “practical atheism” of the anti-Christian secular culture that has taken root in the west and entered even the Church.
The comments came from Cardinal Sarah at the Catholic University of America (CUA) on Thursday, June 14, during an event titled “An Evening with Robert Cardinal Sarah,” sponsored by the Napa Institute and the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C.
Sarah’s lecture was titled “The Catholic Church’s Enduring Answer to the Practical Atheism of Our Age.” In it, the cardinal lamented the rejection of God that has taken hold of much of the west, especially once-Christian Europe. He said this rejection of God takes the form of not so much intellectual atheism but a practical atheism by which modern man acts as if God does not exist or does not matter.
After praising the evident faith of prior generations of Catholics in America, the Guinean cardinal lamented the noticeable loss of faith that has taken hold of many American Catholics since the 1960s.
He denounced Biden as “a self-identified Catholic president who is an example of what Cardinal (Wilton) Gregory recently described as a ‘Cafeteria Catholic.’” Sarah went on to criticize the many so-called “Catholic” politicians, universities, and hospitals that are “Catholic in name only,” exchanging their witness to the faith for a “cultural assimilation” that he condemned as a form of “practical atheism” “hostile to the faith” and “threatening the common good.”
“With respect to the Catholicism of the United States, it is well known that Catholics were for a long time a recognizable minority,” Sarah said. “Catholics went to different churches and schools; they fasted on Fridays; they celebrated the holy days differently; they often lived in ethnic neighborhoods. In short, Catholics were different.
“Nonetheless, they were also proudly American. Their faith inspired a patriotism. In World War II, Catholics fought and died for freedom alongside their Protestant and Jewish brothers and sisters. It was the faith of Catholics that inspired such sacrifice. They were a religious minority, firm in the faith, even if treated as second-class citizens at times, or worse.”
Since the 1960s, Catholics have increasingly lost their unique identity. They are no longer a recognizable minority because they have fully assimilated into American culture. Catholics here are often American first, Catholic second.
The consequences are obvious. Many Catholics hold the same beliefs as the general population. You have a self-identified Catholic president who is an example of what Cardinal Gregory recently described as a “Cafeteria Catholic.” Many of your Catholic public officials are in the same category. Many of your Catholic hospitals and universities are Catholic in name only. The minority status of so many things Catholic here in the United States, which provided an important witness to the fullness of our Catholic faith, has been traded for cultural assimilation.
Observing that the faith is still strong in many parts of the Church in the U.S., in contrast to the “wholesale rejection of the Catholic faith” in parts of Europe and South America, Sarah yet warned that the wider culture has become “hostile” to Catholicism.
He said, “Your seminaries have largely been reformed, lay apostolates are breathing new life into the faith, in parishes there are pockets of life, and my sense is that your episcopal leadership is generally committed to the Gospel, faith in Jesus Christ, and a preservation of our Sacred Tradition. No doubt there are divisions and internal conflict, but there is not a wholesale rejection of the Catholic faith as we see in many parts of Europe and South America. My observation is that there are models of faith here in the United States that could perhaps be a lesson for other western countries.”
Sarah continued, “With that being said, your culture more broadly speaking has become hostile to the faith. There is a practical atheism that has taken over your country and is threatening the common good.”
Rooting practical atheism in a paralyzing fear of opposing the world, Sarah warned against using Catholicism as “a tool for a secular purpose.”
Applying his criticisms to the Church’s hierarchy, Sarah lamented the capitulation of many bishops in the west to the “practical atheism” of the secular world, insisting that the faith must be taken seriously and without compromise.
He said, “As I noted in a recent address to the Bishops of Cameroon: ‘Many Western prelates are paralyzed by the idea of opposing the world. They dream of being loved by the world. They have lost the concern of being a sign of contradiction. Perhaps too much material wealth leads to compromise with world affairs. Poverty is a guarantee of freedom for God. I believe that the Church of our time is experiencing the temptation of atheism. Not intellectual atheism. But this subtle and dangerous state of mind: fluid and practical atheism. The latter is a dangerous disease even if its first symptoms seem mild.’
By practical atheism, I mean a loss of the sense of the Gospel and the centrality of Jesus Christ. Scripture becomes a tool for a secular purpose rather than the call to conversion. I do not think this is widespread among your bishops and priests here in the United States, thanks be to God, but it is becoming more common among other regions of the West. Too many do not take the faith seriously and treat it as a hindrance to dialogue.
St. Paul warned us of this: “For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers and will stop listening to the truth and will be diverted to myths” (2 Tim 4:3-4).
Faithful Catholics have long criticized Biden for using his supposed “Catholicism” as a political tool despite his clear disregard for Catholic moral teaching on life and marriage. Cardinal Raymond Burke has condemned Catholic politicians’ rejection of essential Catholic morals, such as the sanctity of life, as apostasy from the Catholic faith.
The avidly pro-abortion, nominally Catholic Biden, whose Department of Justice has thrown Catholic pro-lifers and priests behind bars, has notably touted his Catholicism as president in blasphemous mockery of the faith, using the sign of the cross and invoking the name of God when expressing his complete support for abortion on demand, in direct contradiction to the revealed truth of the sanctity of human life and the Catholic Church’s clear condemnation of abortion and any form of public support for the murder of the unborn.
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