Sarah has been a vocal advocate for the defense of traditional Catholic teaching on questions of sexual morality and the right to life, and in denouncing Islamic radicalism.

[2][3] Sarah has been described as largely sympathetic to liturgical practices prior to the Second Vatican Council but also proposed that partisans of different liturgies learn from each other and seek a middle ground.

Sarah was born in Ourous, a rural village in then French Guinea, on 15 June 1945, the son of cultivators and converts to Christianity from animism.

[11] The French daily newspaper Le Figaro reports that Sarah "did not hesitate to oppose the all-powerful Sékou Touré, then 'supreme leader of the revolution' but also a commander of violent repressions.

[16][17][18] On 1 October 2001, John Paul II named him secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, a post he held for ten years.

[19] In October 2010 he was appointed president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which carries responsibility for organising Catholic relief efforts worldwide.

[21] On 21 January 2016, Sarah announced that participation in the Holy Thursday foot-washing rite (the mandatum) was no longer limited to men, following instructions from Pope Francis who had included women since the beginning of his papacy.

[26] On 27 May 2015 (the memorial of Saint Augustine of Canterbury), while Cardinal Sarah was serving as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Divine Worship: The Missal, "a legitimate adaptation of the Roman Rite, drawn up in the English Language,"[27] a new form of the Catholic Mass using the traditional language of the Book of Common Prayer, was promulgated over his signature.

[27] Late in May 2016, Cardinal Sarah told an interviewer that the Second Vatican Council did not require priests to celebrate Mass versus populum, that is, facing the congregation.

Cardinal Sarah rejected the argument that priests celebrating Mass facing the East, or ad orientem, are turning their backs on the faithful or "against them".

[28][29] Speaking at a London conference on 5 July 2016, Cardinal Sarah asked all bishops and priests to begin celebrating the Mass ad orientem "wherever possible", "perhaps" by 27 November 2016, the start of Advent.

[30] Sarah then met privately with Francis and on 11 July the Holy See Press Office issued a statement that said that Sarah's London remarks had been "incorrectly interpreted, as if they were intended to announce new indications different to those given so far in the liturgical rules and in the words of the Pope regarding celebration facing the people and the ordinary rite of the Mass", that celebrating Mass facing the congregation (versus populum) was "desirable wherever possible" and not to be superseded by ad orientem.

"[39] An explanatory note, attributed to Cardinal Sarah, soon appeared, specifying that the congregation's approval would not be a mere formality but would involve a detailed review that could lead to binding rejections of unsatisfactory translations.

He believes that there is little possibility of theological dialogue between Christians and Muslims given their essential differences (the Trinity, the Resurrection, the Eucharist), but anticipates collaboration at the national or international level on resistance to abortion, euthanasia, and "the new gender ideology".

[42] Sarah has criticized the "pseudo-family of ideologized Islam which legitimizes polygamy, female subservience, sexual slavery, child marriage.

"[2] Sarah has opposed various attempts to provide legal recognition to gays and lesbians, often casting his remarks in terms of a defense of traditional Catholic and African values against contemporary secular Western culture.

[44][45] According to The Daily Telegraph, Sarah's "outspoken remarks underlined deep rifts within the Church over the Pope's softer, more compassionate attitude towards homosexuality".

[47] In October 2015, he played a leading role in the Synod on the Family's rejection of attempts to ensure more welcoming language toward people who are gay or divorced and remarried.

"[2][49][50][51] He said that "Western homosexual and abortion ideologies and Islamic fanaticism" could be seen as "almost like two apocalyptic beasts" with demonic origins, drew parallels between them and Nazism and Communism, and noted that terrorist attacks in France and Tunisia had taken place on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that made same-sex civil marriage legal nationwide.

"[56] Addressing the U.S. National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on 17 May 2016, Sarah said that "God is being eroded, eclipsed, [and] liquidated" in the United States because of legal changes being adopted "in the name of 'tolerance'".

He cited "the legalization of same-sex marriage, the obligation to accept contraception within health care programs, and even 'bathroom bills' that allow men to use the women's restrooms and locker rooms."