The Anti-Woke Cardinal from Africa Who Conservative Catholics Want as Pope

In the hours after Pope Francis’s death on Easter Monday a surprising name began to circulate as a potential successor, sparking fevered speculation in conservative social media circles.

Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea is exactly the kind of “anti-woke Pope” that many conservative and traditionalist Catholics yearn for after more than a decade in which the progressive element of the Roman Church has been in the ascendant.

He has firmly adopted the conservative line on everything from same-sex marriage and gender ideology to the dangers of Western secularism, Islamic fundamentalism and the threat uncontrolled migration poses to European culture and values.

There was only one problem. Before Monday, few, not even most, credible Catholic conservatives thought he had the slightest chance. He was thought too outspoken, too conservative and, at 79, quite possibly too old to win sufficient support in the College of Cardinals, who will meet in conclave in the Sistine Chapel over the coming weeks to choose a new pontiff. Betting sites gave him just a 2 per cent shot at becoming the next Pope.

Cardinal Sarah’s chances, however, have been boosted somewhat by neatly packaged sound bites circulated rapidly around conservative social media spheres of influence.

An unattributed and rather grainy video interview with the cardinal warning of the dangers of migration to Europe also began to do the rounds on Monday as the Pope’s death was settling in for many.

“My biggest worry is that Europe has lost the sense of its origins,” the footage shows Cardinal Sarah as saying. “It has lost its roots… I’m afraid the West is dying… You are invaded still by other cultures, other people which will progressively dominate you by their numbers and completely change your culture, your convictions, your culture.”

The video was seized on with delight. Nick Sortor, a Maga influencer and podcast host with 953,000 followers, posted: “Wow! One of the frontrunners for Pope, Cardinal Robert Sarah, is a hardliner against mass migration.”

Dominik Tarcsýnski, a Polish MEP from the populist Law and Justice Party, joined the clamour, calling the cardinal “our hope.”

It was not just conservatives. Accounts known to promote pro-Russian narratives, like Radio Genoa and African Hub, with more than 2 million followers between them, joined in. “Catholics worldwide want Cardinal Robert Sarah to be the next Pope,” African Hub posted.

More assertive statements on X were soon declaring that, far from being an outsider, Cardinal Sarah was actually among the frontrunners.

Much of the initial impetus behind the frenzy appears to have been driven by a Catholic social media influencer from Kerala in India called Sachin Jose Ettiyil, who posted a list of candidates most likely to be elected Pope to his 206,000 followers and placed Cardinal Sarah at the top. The post was viewed 1.6 million times.

Mr Ettiyil has long been a fan of the Guinean, frequently posting quotes from the cardinal reflecting his conservative views on contentious issues, particularly on the rise of secularism in Europe. “By losing its Christian roots, Europe loses its identity,” Mr Ettiyil quoted Cardinal Sarah as saying in one post, “if Christianity disappears in Europe, the whole world is threatened,” in another.

It remains to be seen whether the online attention the cardinal has received translates into the kind of momentum that could propel him to the papacy. His odds have certainly significantly shortened in the past 24 hours, with William Hill quoting him at 14/1, making him the seventh favourite.

And a handful of conservative Catholic commentators have long predicted that he is a genuine “papabile”, the Italian term used to denote a credible candidate for the papacy.

In a 2020 article in Crisis Magazine, a Catholic publication, Michael Warren Davis, a prominent American conservative Catholic writer, argued that “Cardinal Sarah is most likely to succeed Pope Francis” on account of his doctrinal soundness and liturgical positions.

That remains very much a minority view, however.

Cardinal Sarah has long defended himself against accusations of disloyalty to Pope Francis, telling Corriere della Sera in 2019: “Those who place me in opposition to the Holy Father cannot present a single word of mine, a single phrase or a single attitude to support their absurd – and I would say, diabolical – affirmations.”

Such protestations, however, have done little to assuage concerns that the cardinal is too outspoken and too forthright to become the unifying figure the Roman Catholic Church needs following a papacy that divided the faithful.

His courage in standing up to two Guinean dictators, Ahmed Sékou Touré and Lansana Conté, coupled with his traditional views, may win him support in African and US conservative circles, but might not count for much in conclave, according to an African Catholic clergyman who says there is “little likelihood” of the cardinal becoming Pope.

Many Catholic conservatives are instead pinning their hopes on Cardinal Peter Erdö, the Hungarian Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest.

He has also expressed concern about migration and is seen as a traditionalist who would restore the primacy of religious teachings after Pope Francis’s reformist moves. However, he is also seen as a more accommodating figure than Cardinal Sarah, meaning he could potentially win over moderates at conclave.

William Hill has quoted Cardinal Erdö at 8/1, making him fifth favourite – still a long way behind the leading contenders, the reformist Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s softly spoken secretary of state under Pope Francis.

Papal elections are notoriously unpredictable, however, meaning that few would be willing entirely to write off Cardinal Sarah’s chances. Pope Francis himself was considered a rank outsider: the bookies ranked him before his election in 2013 as the 15th favourite – which goes to show how little, in ecclesiastical matters, the pundits really know.